Republican or Libertarian?

I used to be a very active Republican.  I was a county Volunteer of the Year and I twice ran for local office as a Republican--but after today, something that I told my wife a few days ago became even more true.  I told her that every day I am a little less Republican and a little more Libertarian.

Many times in this blog I have talked about what both federal and state regulations have done to my chances of making a living playing poker.  As I become more and more aware of the havoc caused by government laws and regulations, I become more and more convinced that none of the major party politicians are willing or able to do anything about it.  Almost no one seems to care about our national debt of around $19,000,000,000.*  More and more tax of your taxes and mine are going toward paying the interest on that debt.

Other than Republican congressman Paul Ryan, who continues to insist that we have to cut the national budget and attack the debt, even if we have to (gasp!) cut entitlements, I don't trust any of the politicians to get it done.  I mention all of this because the laws and regulations of the federal government have a huge affect on the way medicine is practiced in the United States--and that affects my medical care and yours.

When I saw a doctor as a child, that doctor had a nurse. My doctor now has six different people that come in and out of the office while I am being examined,  It takes a small army of people to understand all of those regulations and do the required paperwork.

This of course makes everything more expensive and complicated.  I was forced to change the drug that I take for Attention Deficit Disorder because my insurance company wanted me to take something that is less expensive for them to cover.

Again, this all happens because of excessive government regulation.  In cases where the government is not heavily involved, everything is cheaper and easier. As an example, Lasik surgeons have great results.  The service continues to get better and less expensive, because doctors compete to give the best service at the lowest prices.

That's called a free market.  It works.  Only Libertarians get it.  Many politicians say that they understand and that something should be done, but they do nothing.

Fast forward to today, when I went to get the new drug.  It was not available.  It needs a prior approval that has kept two people in the doctor's office working for the last two days.  The pharmacy bounced it back to the doctor's office again because the prior approval paperwork that my doctor's office had done was deemed insufficient.

In summary, I talked to the doctor five days ago.  They gave me a written prescription which I took to the pharmacy the same day.  Five days later, I still don't have that drug or the new one.

When I play a poker tournament I'm competing with eight or nine other people at the table who want my chips. Sometimes there are hundreds of players (or more) in a tournament.**  I'm trying to finish in the top three, where most of the prize money is, without the medication that helps control my Attention Deficit Disorder.  Figuratively speaking, I'm competing with half my brain tied behind my back.

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*http://www.usdebtclock.org/

**When I was still fairly new to poker, I played an online tournament with a $3.30 entry fee.  I finished 7th of 4,200 players and cashed for $384.

A Medical Setback

Something that I think about all the time is that the clock is ticking on poker.  I need to make something happen but, as detailed in previous posts, that never seems to happen.  There are often good reasons for that, for example, when I was acting as a caregiver for a relative.

Yesterday was my 61st birthday.  I don't have unlimited time to get my career as a poker player off the ground.  Now it's on hold, again for good reason.  We are moving to a place where it will be much more quiet, I will have finally have my own office and we will save about $400 a month over what it costs to live where we are now.

I told my wife a few days ago that in November when we're all set in our new place, I can't let anything else get in the way of poker.  I have to make it happen NOW,  Then I went to pick up a perscription--and I found out that the insurance no longer covers Adderall.

I definitely have some things going for me at the poker table, and my brain is in some ways my best asset.  My IQ is 154.  But in other ways, my brain isn't so good.  I have Attention Deficit Disorder and I have a problem moving information from short-term to long-term memory.

What that practically means is that if I play poker against you today, tomorrow I'm not going to remember most of the details about how you play and I certainly won't precisely remember any of the hands. ADD makes is very difficult for me to concentrate, be organized or stay focused--this is a big deal not only at the table, but when I'm home studying. Try using flash cards to memorize hand ranges when you have a poor memory and have trouble concentrating.

ADD hasn't been that much of a problem once I knew what I was dealing with and found the proper medication.  It doesn't help with the memory problems, but it helps me focus at the poker table.  It also helps me sit for a boring half hour looking at flash same cards over and over until I finally get a new hand range memorized.  I have to review the cards often or I forget what I learned, but I can do that.

Without Adderall it would be impossible to do a lot of that things I can do now.  Without Adderall I took my 154 IQ  to three different colleges and finished withonly one degree, from a community college. I had to repeat some classes to get that far.

This is really scary.  The first ADD drug that I took didn't work, and I found what I needed with Adderall on the second try.  Now the insurance company wants me to try other drugs which may or may not work for me.  My other options are to pay for Addrall out-of-pocket or go through a long appeal process to get covered for Addreall.  Neither is a good option.

This is really scary.  The clock is ticking, louder and louder.  Poker was mostly on hold for two years while I was a caregiver, and now this.  It's really discouraging.  I hope that this isn't as bad for poker as I think it will be.

I'm Moving

I haven't been posting lately because there isn't much to talk about. Poker has been on the back burner and that will continue for a few more weeks. I'm working on poker less than 10 hours a week.  My wife and I are moving and dealing with all that entails. I'm back to posting every day, or at least almost every day,  For the next few weeks this blog will be about moving as much as it is about poker.  We will be moving on or around October 10.

The move will give me a much better situation for poker, both studying and playing online.  I'll get into the reasons for that in future posts.  Also, since summer started there has been one murder per month with 1/2 mile of our current home.  The most recent was three days ago. That's not the main reason we are moving, but it certainly reinforces our decision.

It's not a big move geographic move.  It's only six miles north of where I am now.  You could call it a Dave Ramsey move.*  A lot of people would say that moving into a trailer is a step down, but it's going to save us a boatload of money and that is our goal.

More about both moving and the state of poker in future posts.

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*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dave_Ramsey_Show_(radio_program)