Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

I caught this article in the NYTimes this morning talking about a new software product by Microsoft – Songsmith.  Basically, the software allows you to sing in vocals.  It then generates the music to accompany your vocals based on preferences you set (e.g., lighter or darker mood, rhythm, beat, etc.).  The original advertisement video by the coders who put it together is a bit sad.  But Songsmith has such potential for humor.  How?  Take classic songs, strip out the music and add the vocals to Songsmith.  Then let it work its magic.  I watched two of them this morning and was rolling with laughter.

• Roxanne by The Police accompanied by Songsmith
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles accompanied by Songsmith

First, thank you to everyone who submitted a possible name.  We ended up with a list of about 50 names.  After an exhaustive debate (I’m nursing a seriously bruised ego), we have narrowed the list down to 13 names we like.  We’re now hoping people will vote for their favorite name and let us know which names they like and don’t like and why.  Getting feedback has been very helpful in this process, so please comment at length.  You can choose up to 3 names:

[poll id="2"]

(Disclaimer: We may not go with the top rated name.  We’re really looking for feedback on what names we shouldn’t use.)

Debi had her 20 week ultrasound today, which is traditionally the ultrasound when the sex is determined.  The baby didn’t really want to participate when it came to determining the sex.  It waved:

Sat back and relaxed:

And generally tried to make it difficult for us to determine its sex.  The baby had its legs bunched up underneath it, making it impossible to get a clear shot of the genitalia.  The ultrasound technician had to nudge the baby to move its legs… Then:

It’s a boy!

So, this poses a problem… We were actually hoping for a girl, not because we have a preference for a boy or girl but because we had girl names picked out that we agreed on.  We’ve been fighting over boy names ever since we got married.  So, now we need to come up with a boy name we can both agree on.  We have a couple we like, but we figured we could ask for suggestions on here.  Before you suggest any names, keep in mind we have some criteria:

• it can’t be a name in the top 100 most common boy names right now
• no “juniors” or immediate family names
• we are preferential to famous scientists
• it has to sound good with “Cragun”

We’re thinking once we get a list of names we like, we’ll post the names on here and let people vote and comment.  We may not listen to what you have to say, but it may help us narrow down the names.

On a related note, one of my students in class today mentioned that her grandfather’s name was “Buster Cherry.”  This is in my sociology of human sexuality class, too, which makes it even more hilarious!

Debi is pretty sure she can feel the baby moving as of today.  It’s a much better feeling than the baby insisting she expel her leftover ravioli from dinner the other night. :(

Here’s how the conversation went when she told me she felt movement:

Debi: The baby is moving.

Ryan: Where to? Do you think it will be happier there?

She did laugh.  I’m amazed she finds my humor funny.

We have the 20 week ultrasound this week, which means we should find out the sex in a couple days.

On a different front, I just got back from a week long trip to Hartford, CT.  I was working with the people who conduct the American Religious Identification Survey.  I flew up last Sunday and started to develop flu-like symptoms Monday morning.  Oh, and my 2 year-old laptop (Acer Aspire 5600) decided to stop working.  I ended up buying a new laptop up there just so I could get my work done.  The flu-like symptoms continued the whole time I was there and I finally scheduled a doctor’s appointment for the day I got back to Tampa.  Not the flu…  Kidney infection.  Blech!  Not fun!  Anyway, healing quickly.

While there, something funny happened, which was blogged about by one of the other people who was there.  Rather than repeat what he wrote, I’ll just send you to his website.

Classes start again on Tuesday.

This post needs a funny picture.  How about this random picture of a kid with funky hair:

Not sure if anyone will be interested in this, but I occasionally talk about this issue in my classes and finally found a document to illustrate my point.

Our health care system in the US makes little to no sense, in large part due to health insurance companies.  From what I understand, health insurance companies negotiate prices with health insurance providers for pretty much every service they cover (when they cover services).  Thus, the health care provider (your doctor) charges some price for a service but the insurance company pays a different price.

So, an example:  Let’s say you go to a doctor for a visit.  The doctor charges you $100 for the visit.  The bill goes to your insurance provider, who has negotiated ahead of time to only pay $50 for a doctor’s visit.  So, your insurance company pays it’s percent of the negotiated amount – 80% or $40 -  and you pay your percent – 20% or $10.

Here’s the kicker: If you don’t have health insurance, you still get charged the full amount by your doctor – $100, no discount applied (some times they do, but often they don’t).  Now, this may not be a big deal if you’re only talking about a doctor’s visit for $100.  But what if it’s a $1000 charge, or $10,000?  Now it’s an issue of really screwing over the uninsured.

Additionally, insurance companies increasingly want all expenses to go through them – you don’t even pay co-pays anymore.  This makes it so individuals have no idea how much their health care actually costs.  I don’t remember the last time I went to a doctor’s office and the doctor actually told me the up front cost of a procedure or visit.  This way, the insurance companies are like a big black box – health care providers submit charges, the insurance companies pay whatever they pay, and they pass on a certain percent to the consumer.  This puts the insurance companies in almost complete control of health care in the US.  Consider what life would be like if all of your purchases worked this way:

You walk into Best Buy to buy a TV.  When you walk in, you have to sit down and fill out a form that asks about your purchasing history to make sure you will have no complications purchasing anything at Best Buy.  There are no prices on any TVs, but you talk to someone in the store who tells you that you “need” the 46 inch flat panel TV.  You agree and tell him you’ll take it.  You pull out your “merchandise insurance card” and hand it over.  He photocopies it, tells you to sign a piece of paper, then sets up a follow up visit to consider universal remotes.  They load the TV into your vehicle and you drive it home.  Several weeks later your “merchandise insurance company” sends you a bill.  Best Buy charged them $10,000 for the TV, but they have a discount negotiated with them of $8,000, so the TV is only $2,000.  You pay 20%, so you owe $400.  Of course, to use this “merchandise insurance company” you also pay them about $500 per month for a family plan and your employer pays an additional $1,000 per month.  So, your insurance company makes $1,500 per month and doesn’t pay full price for services.  If you don’t have “merchandise insurance,” you pay the full price at Best Buy.  Who would buy anything this way if you have no idea how much it will eventually cost you?

So, I was getting rid of 2007′s financial records when I came across a bunch of notices from our old health insurance company.  The one I scanned is great.  I won’t say what it is for, but the charge from the health care service provider was $965.  The discount for the insurance provider: $885.  That’s a 92% discount.  That leaves $80 to be paid.  Our co-pay at the time was $15.  Which means the health insurance company paid $65 out of $965 charged to it, or 7% of what it was charged.

How many times have you heard someone say, “Thank god we have insurance”?  Are we really lucky to have health insurance? Health insurance seems like a good idea when it is used to spread out the cost of major healthcare expenses.  But today it is generally used just to enrich people: catostrophic health care is passed on to the government because the health care companies either drop them or won’t take them for pre-existing conditions.  They also try to find as many things as possible to not cover.  That leaves health insurance companies providing insurance just for the healthy, who have lower costs.  Then they get discounts and pass some of the cost on to you.  You pay for the privilege to not know how much you have to pay.  It’s time for a new system…