COBRA follies

[ritaxis]

The thing about Obamacare is that it doesn't really kick in till 2014. So, in 2013, I'm still dealing with the weird, weird, impossible old system.

Comments

[thomasyan]

Wow. I also recently signed up for COBRA, and while not cheap, my monthly rate is considerably lower than $903. Is health insurance in California super expensive?

[ritaxis]

I think it is a particular deal with the insurance company, thatbthey bargained away COBRA in order to get a better price on something else. Or something. I know it isn't always this bad.

[khiemtran]

I had thought it was a side effect of shells whose main purpose was to cause damage by impact, but in fact, shrapnel is the whole point.

More specifically, shrapnel is a type of shell designed to kill by fragmentation. The shrapnel Fritz describes is from shrapnel shells bursting in the air using timed fuzes.

[ritaxis]

Yeah, I just somehow totally missed that before I read the firstp-person account. My eyes glaze over when reading technical explanations by war buffs, I guess, even when I'm highly motivated to understand. But Fritz doesn't have to tell me what the shrapnel is for, when he describes what it looks and sounds and feels like I get it right away.

[khiemtran]

Hmm. Just did some extra reading and looks like what a shrapnel shell does isn't even called fragmentation. Basically, the explosive charge when they burst is just enough to scatter a load of "bullets" so they'll kill more efficiently. The bullets get their energy mainly from the velocity of the shell itself, so what we see, from Fritz's eyes, is small white puffs, up in the air , followed by bullets raining down and travelling roughly in the same direction as the original shell. When he first describes them, it sounds like the Russians have got their fuzing wrong, as the shrapnel shells are bursting too high and the new Austrian troops don't even notice the bullets.

[ritaxis]

Thank you!