Re: the dating behavior. I'd be really sad if one of my kids were making those sorts of reckless choices. I don't know what I'd do .. . but I'd be very tempted to send a note to her therapist and psychiatrist with a very brief summary of my concerns. Probably a terrible idea, but I'd be tempted, especially if I felt like her actions were dangerous. (TINDER!?!?) Re: the mess. I think that the gross bathroom is really out of line. However, it's fairly small potatoes. I think you could tell her that you've hired a cleaning service and that she now needs to pay $200/mo starting tomorrow (or wherever seems reasonable to hire someone to do some cleaning a couple times a month), and hire someone to clean for a few hours every other week with that 200/mo. Have them do that bathroom thoroughly, of course, and have them do some other annoying chores as well -- that'll take some pressure off you and maybe make you not mind as much the rest of the messes she makes. Honestly, her disgustingness sounds like mental health stuff. So, I'd probably try to put up with it (by hiring a cleaning person on her dime, not by YOU doing it) and focus on more significant issues. However, if she's not making progress towards getting well, and she can afford to travel willy nilly . . . seems to me like she could afford rent in a shared apartment somewhere. I think she might need to do that . . . (((hugs)))

I just thought I'd update this since I'd chimed in earlier with my experience as an employer and user of the ACA. Recap: Our personal family-of-5 coverage had gone up from 1850/mo last year to 2500+/mo this year. (Yoikes!) We decided to check the "SHOP Exchange" on the ACA. It's a marketplace for very small (under 50 employees) businesses to buy group health insurance. We had wanted to use it from the get-go in 2014, but it wasn't ready on time, so it didn't launch until the following year. As a result, we'd actually cancelled our group health insurance plan at work to allow our staff and ourselves to be eligible for the subsidies on the ACA (and given them raises to cover their premiums). We were very happy with the ACA for 2 years, less so last year with premium increases, and pretty shocked at 2017 pricing (more than double our 2014 pricing . . . ) So, anyway, we have launched a SHOP ACA plan for our employees (and ourselves)!!! Our family pricing came down to 1800/mo for a bit better but generally comparable plan as would have been 2500+ on the individual exchange. Our employee pricing is also generally pretty decent. Runs about 350-400/mo per employee, depending on their age/etc. (One over 50 is more like 600/mo) We'll be paying 75% of that (so around 300/mo per employee); the employees 25% (around 90/mo for the 20-somethings, 145 for the 50+ year old). Because we are a (relatively) low wage and tiny employer, our business will get a federal gov't subsidy back of about 45% of the part we pay towards our employee premiums (not our own or our immediate family, though, sensibly). So, that brings our true employer cost down to more around 150-170 per employee (as high as 250 or so for our oldest staff member). Employees could add their dependents to the plan if they choose, at their cost (pre-tax). They can also choose from 3 different "silver level" plans, although there's not a lot of choice in there as they are all the same company. The plans are very good from the most reputable company in our region. (Freedom to use any provider, small co-pays, moderate deductible, etc, very few exclusions on what they cover for mental health/infertility/etc) So, as a business, after all the tax/etc stuff washes out along with our personal family savings of the reduced premiums, we'll likely be spending maybe an extra 700-800/mo or so to cover the 8 other FT employees, or a bit less if they don't all accept the coverage. Employees are all coming out a good bit better. Most were already covered on ACA plans (I'd walked them all through it 3 years ago.) But the newer employees didn't get walked through signing up for ACA, and at least one is uninsured, so this will be very good for her. Another team member will be happy to have this option to her spouse's work insurance, since that plan (big state employee plan) is going bankrupt in our state and is getting really crappy and expensive. Using the SHOP exchange was at least 5000 times easier than "olden days" shopping for coverage for a small group. Now, the pricing is purely based on ages and zip codes, that's it! No 10 page medical history forms, no messing up your plan pricing by having one sick or old person. The subsidies make it feasible to offer the insurance without making a big cut in wages. As it is, though, it's still a big added payroll expense, and we'll likely hold wages steady during our annual age review this winter due to that. You do have a lot of data to put into the system (SSNs, birth dates, hire dates, etc, as well as all that for each dependent), but I think it'll be pretty plug-and-play now that it's all official and launched. SO, I sure hope the ACA Employer SHOP exchange thing stays put. Or, just maybe, the "Excellent" "Super" "Fantastic" very, very, very "Great" but thus far super-secret health care plan that will soon be unveiled will be even greater!! Won't that be fabulous!! I just can't wait!!

My guess. He's not allowed to have the phone in his bedroom or bathroom. He wants to have the phone in there, because it is private, and he uses the phone (data connection if you have a blocker on your wifi) to access p0rn and, ahem, have some teen-boy alone time. So, given that assumption, and the reality that with a 16+ year old young man, it is *really* not your place to try to stop those activities (not that I think p0rn is a great thing) . . . But, anyway, that's what I'd guess is going on. Personally, I agree with other posters that you should really back completely off about it. If you want to keep the rule about phone in bath/bed room, then you can, but I'd suggest you consider dropping it and completely removing yourself from this issue. Why do you care how long he spends in the bathroom? I urge you to "pick your battles" wisely, and his bodily functions and personal habits should really, really not be battles that you choose. I think there is a good chance you are going to really screw this kid up if you keep at it. Please back off.

Wow, that's horrible. It sounds like your mom is just mean. Honestly, I think you'd be best served, and your kids best served, by severing all ties to her. If you can't do that, then certainly minimize contact to the bare, bare minimum and never, ever share any personal information with her. Ever. I would NOT discuss the manuscript. There is no point. She did this to hurt you. If you are willing to do it, I'd advise seeing a therapist if you can't yet bring yourself to disown your mother. She sounds like a monster. Really. I'm so, so sorry.

You can write someone in. I stand by my statement.

If you don't vote, you can't complain! Who wants to go 4 years w/o griping about politics!?

The more I see, the more I'd say that the house would probably be a gut/remodel if I were buying it. If it's priced well enough to make that reasonable, and I was up for it, then I'd consider it. Just be SURE you understand the true costs of remodeling (including the time costs/vacancy time), as IME, remodel expenses are generally about double to triple the initial estimates and take 3-5 times as long as expected.

OMG, that bathroom is utterly horrible! I don't think there's one thing it in that I'd want to salvage. I'd definitely gut it and start over -- going for clean, simple, modern. No one needs a lodge style bathroom. No one. Everyone wants a clean, user-friendly bathroom. Wow. Just wow.

Love these pics!! What a classy cabin look!!

I'd tone it down a bit by painting the ceiling. Either just rip out that wood up there and re-drywall it, or paint the wood. The wood on the ceiling looks cheap to me -- like plywood and 2-bys , in contrast to the reasonably nice paneling, etc. SO, if I wanted to tone down the lodge look, the first thing I'd do would be to re-do that ceiling. Paint might not end up looking great, as you've got open grain wood up there . . . So, get a price on ripping that out and putting in drywall . . . Or consider spackling/painting the ceiling beams and then putting up a paintable wall paper over the wood panels . . . You can get tin-ceiling look type embossed wallpaper, and then paint it white, and that'd look pretty nice. And, I think those murals are hideous, so I'd definitely lose the murals. Paint those walls creamy white, too. And maybe a lighter color flooring (dare I say wood??!! But maybe with a large area carpet??) would be nice and more upscale, IMHO.

Actually, adult cats nearly always readily accept kittens. Bringing multiple ADULT cat together is really hard, but the vast majority of time, adult cats accept kittens. They may never be great buddies, but they will very likely peaceably coexist. Anyway, my suggestion is to get a new/second cat tree/home base for the new kitten, this gives the new kitten an escape/home base and leaves your cats' current tree/etc alone. Likewise, feed in a different area, and add a (at least one) new litter box. My dh is a vet, and he spend a couple days a few weeks ago doing continuing ed on, and went to a bunch of cat talks, one of which mentioned that no matter how many cats you have, they will only form a bond/unit with others they have been with since birth. So, littermates +/- momma cat are "one" unit. But, other than that, every cat you get will be its own little world. (Relevant to this talk in that means each UNIT needs its own food/litter/sleeping area on each floor of your home . . . So, if you wanna' be a cat lady, get families, lol). SOOO, anyway, that's just to say that loads of people have gazillions of cats, and usually few are related. :) It works fine. We have 3 adult (elderly) unrelated cats. Last weekend we adopted a new pair of kittens. <3 <3 They make my heart sing. <3 <3 Our house is huge, and one of our adult cats lives in the "guest wing" and never interacts with the rest of our pets (she was my deceased mom's cat). She essentially lives in her own house, with her own cat tree/litter box/feeding area. The other two cats co-exist happily in the rest of the house -- which has a litter box on each floor (so, three), and each has his/her own feeding area. Now, we added a pair of littermate kittens! They got two new cat trees, their own litter box, their own water and feeding area. We've had them 9 days so far, and the other adult cats are still avoiding them like the plague. It's hysterical to see these giant 10-14 lb cats skitter around the room to avoid these 8 ounce balls of fur. We also have 2 dogs. All this has gone on and there's been no trouble at all ... The trick to peaceful co-existence, I think, is to have plenty of resources (sleeping spots/trees, food areas, litter boxes) so that there's never any competition for those sorts of things, and if one cat tosses another off a favored location, there are always good options . . . In general, the big cats will ignore the babies. The babies may want to play with the adult cats, which could be annoying for the adult . .. so have plenty of toys/play time with the kitten to minimize that. Better yet, get a pair of littermates, and you'll have the best of all worlds.

Oh. My. Word! What horrible, bizarre people!!! ((((hugs))))

The Bosch 800 has a red light at the bottom that glows on the floor. It's very easy to know when it's running!

ps, in my Bosch, several of the rows of tines can be flopped flat to make a large open area. I can put any/all large pots in there that I want to. I mostly hand-wash huge things, but occasionally, if I want to run a load and it has lots of space available, I'll snap down a row or two of tines and stick large colanders/pots/etc in there.

Bosch 800. Love, love, love. It's a long cycle (like most/all modern dishwashers, I think), but the dishes come out clean and sparkly, and it's SUPER quiet (like barely can tell it's on), and the racks are great -- especially the 3rd rack. It's awesome.

One cat eats on the counter in the laundry room. Another cat eats on the powder room floor. (We close her in there while she's eating.) Previously, a pair of our cats ate on a bathroom counter. Our new kittens eat on an upper level of their cat tree. (They can't quite climb to the highest dog-proof level, yet, but when they can, they'll be fed at a top level to make them dog-proof.) One cat used to be fed at the top of the basement steps, on the landing. All our dogs will steal cat food if they get a chance. So will our big fat cat. So, most of our pets have to be fed in places where they can be protected from naughty dogs and the naughty cat. For cats, if they eat together and all you need to do is keep dogs away from their food, a tall cat tree is the best idea. They have trees as tall as 7' tall and you can even anchor them to the ceiling if you need to in order to prevent a really naughty dog from knocking the whole thing over! (Also, you can place a tree in a corner, making it much harder to knock over.) Alternately, you can just supervise their eating times. We generally feed 2x/day and it's a 10 min process of sticking various animals in various places and then supervising so Fat Cat doesn't steal anyone's food. The only hitch is that we have one skinny cat who really needs to eat as often as she likes. So, she's now fed in the powder room, and many times throughout the day, she fusses and is then shut up in there with her bowl of (dry) food that we stash in the vanity drawer when she's not eating it. She fusses again a few minutes to be let out, lol. And, now we have 2 kittens, who need to eat all day, so they are fed on the cat tree, and we refill as needed if Bad Dog knocks it off the tree and eats it all up. In general, I think laundry room counters or tall cat trees are generally good bets. As are meal times instead of free-feedings. Anyway, it's an arms race. Good luck!!

Nope, never (except when nursing/leaking, and even then, I only wore the sleep bra for the worst weeks and went with a bath towel under me the rest of the time, lol.) I think the teen campers and their parents and anyone else who treated their complaints as anything other than inappropriate, rude, nasty comments are crazed. When I'm in a more "public" venue such as hosting a large slumber party for my girls, or similar, I often wear a tank top under a button down flannel shirt. Or I just put a robe over my night clothes. When I'm at home with family (plus or minus a small number of house guests that are close friends/family), I wander around braless whenever I feel like it -- so mornings/late evenings in general. My boOks are covered with fabric (tank top usually -- some are loose and fairly modest, others are snug and not very modest at all but oh, so comfy . . . I avoid the less modest ones if there are non-family-members in the house), and my butt is covered by something more than underwear (well, sometimes just undies if it's a quick kitchen run and ONLY my immediate family and/or female friends are in the house). But, I don't consider a bra any sort of requirement in public or otherwise. I'm not into the whole body shaming thing. My mom was a bra-free rebel in most of the 70s & 80s, when that was an acceptable thing to do . . . So I guess I grew up with the sense that bra or no bra is a personal choice. I personally like to keep my private areas COVERED, but I don't feel any compunction to hide their shape/structure/anatomy. Sometimes I wander out in my (large, private unless you're on my property) yard braless to take the dogs out or even do a bit of yard work, or whatever. If someone showed up in my driveway unannounced and saw me, well, that's their problem (or pleasure, I guess, depending on their mindset.) If someone gets offended or turned on by my braless bOoKs, then, whatever, that's their issue, not mine. Happy viewing, folks. I'm no more concerned about that than I'd be if they were offended or turned on by my calves or my shoulders. Whatever. Their problem, not mine.

You can choose how to behave. You can't choose the consequences for those behaviors. Behave badly, and your bad behavior may be observed. I think judgement is highly underrated.

For moving cats, the best thing we've done was to use a large dog travel crate, duck tape a small little box in a corner of it (a cardboard boot box worked well), and of course, have a water dish (they have them that secure to the metal grate at the front of the crate) handy, and then you can feed them in the morning/night at the hotel. When I moved my cats this way, I had 2 cats in one large dog crate. At the hotel at night, we'd let them loose to play/eat/etc. Worked great. For 3 cats, I'd suggest using multiple crates -- either 2 or 3. Only put more than one cat in each crate if they are very friendly. Line the crate with a dog bed sort of bedding, not just folded blankets/towels. The dog bed will stay secure and not slip around, and that will allow the cats to snuggle into it, grip with their claws, etc, and feel more secure. I've used this method for a 2000 mile 5 day x-country move more than once. Always worked well. Also, be sure your pets all have collars with your CELL PHONE number on it. If you don't have time to get tags printed, just use a simple collar and make a masking tape "flag" on the collar with your number on it. This is super helpful for traveling/moving. And, if your cats are not microchipped, then this would be a good time to get that done. During the move/hotels/etc, be extremely vigilant to always have "two doors" between your cat and the outdoors. Cats escaping from vehicles or hotels, etc, is very common. Discuss this with your vet . . . He might have additional tips.

Some people care about etiquette. Some people don't. You are free to carry on as you wish. I actually don't have etiquette issues with anyone in my personal life. I am flabbergasted at the folks here who are so uniformed about (or simply uninterested in abiding by) ordinary good manners. The people whose etiquette problems I described in my wedding post are not friends of ours. They are (apparently) friends of the bride. Dh and I attended the wedding out of respect since we were invited, but we are the bride's employers and have no social contact outside of work. However, when young people get married, they often invite us. I suppose it is partially out of respect for us and also, they probably feel affectionately towards us since we are (much to your surprise, I am sure) considered by our staff to be exceptionally kind and supportive employers. We often end up feeling a parental sort of affection/pride towards these young people, as we often get to witness their evolution from "college kids" to young married and/or professional adults, which is something rather sweet, and we enjoy being able to assist them in their journeys. While I am not a stickler for fork usage or shoe color etiquette, I do care about etiquette when it harms others (costs them wasted money, costs them being able to invite someone who'd actually care enough to show up, makes their special event less special in any way, etc.) , especially on such an important day as a wedding. Etiquette exists to smooth the way for comfortable, pleasant, respectful social interactions. It provides "rules" so we can all understand what the expectations are of us and help guide is in behaving in ways that are comfortable. Break the rules, and you look bad. I'm not saying either of these etiquette-breakers are bad people. I'm saying they look like people with bad manners by disrespecting a very important event to which they'd been invited. And, people with bad manners and poor social judgment are not generally pleasant to have around socially, and neither are they people who are likely to reflect well on a business when they use those poor manners and poor judgement while on the job. Personally, I'd place showing up at a wedding (or funeral) on time and as expected as a very high priority. I would consider it a critical as a 4-month-waiting-list-appointment with a medical specialist, or a job interview for my dream job. We all have things in our lives that we just MAKE SURE we show up to on time, properly, without fail. That's how I'd look at a wedding -- even if it's not my BFF or my kid or MINE. It's someone else's precious day, and I would make sure that not ONE THING I did caused the bride or her family one moment of concern, unhappiness, or any other negative emotion. That's just terrible, IMHO. I would be on time. I would be properly attired. I'd RSVP accurately and follow through. I'd not miss it unless there were some event completely out of my control that truly made it impossible (car wreck on the way to the church . . . kid falls off the swing and has to go to ER . . . that sort of thing). As many of us here have observed, it is commonplace now for brides to have un-taken seats at their place-card covered tables. It is common to not have people RSVP on time or at all. ETC. Note that 30 years ago, these things were virtually unheard of. If someone wasn't at their place at the table, there'd be panicked talk of a car accident or death . . . Now days, we all just figure "something better came up". In my world, that's just selfish, nasty behavior. In *my* social circle, people show up when we say we'll show up -- for important events. For a casual walk date or whatever, we are all understanding when "life happens" and don't even ask for or expect explanations (although we often offer them along with our profuse apologies). When a friend cancels a walk date at the last minute, I never ask why. Usually, the next time we get together, I end up hearing the story about the marital fight or the teen-angst child . . . But, I never question the why, because we are all grown up enough to understand and accept that with our busy, complicated lives, things happen, and we may not want to explain, so we don't ask for explanations, obviously . . . and giving each other space and grace to cancel casual things at the last minute allows us the space to make those dates in the first place! However, we ALL have our shit together enough to show up to weddings, funerals, even graduation parties . . . on time, dressed appropriately, and with smiles. Because, when we have some important commitment in someone ELSE's life . . . we are all grown up enough to pull up our big girl panties and carry on, whether our spouse is sulking or our teen is angst-ing. We'd show up for work no matter (right? If not, who can keep a serious job?) And, if a paycheck is worth the effort to "carry on" and follow through, then certainly someone ELSE's special occasion should be important enough to follow through on your commitments. I encourage anyone who truly doesn't understand the etiquette of skipping a wedding to attend a reception, or not following through on an RSVP, to simply google up etiquette for the occasion you aren't sure about. It's not a grey area. You can disregard common courtesy as you wish, of course, as it is not a crime. It is, however, an easy way to get a bad reputation among those who observe your lack of common courtesy.

Well, I think it's incredibly rude to not show to a wedding you've RSVP'ed to for any reason unless it's a life or death event for you or your loved ones. I also think it's rude to skip the wedding when you've RSVP'ed. Both the people who did that work for me. I've judged. I've made note. I think less of them. You are free to do whatever you want in your life, but when it's a public act (such as no-showing to a wedding or skipping part of it), people who observe you will judge, whether you want them to or not. Just like I'd judge someone who did some other rude act in public. Judge manners/rudeness -- yes. I'm not judging whether the person going to Heaven or Hell or are a good human being -- I'll leave that to their maker/conscience/etc. But, I'm judging their public manners, which are terrible, IMHO. And, bad manners reflect badly on a person, and will, indeed impact their future employment/friendships/etc. I'd certainly not invite anyone who did something so rude to an important event in my life, for sure.

I'll add my disapproval of the modern disregard for social norms/RSVP'ing/etc. We recently attended an employee's wedding. (A very junior employee, and also a generation younger than us, obviously.) It was a very lovely affair, in a nice church and then a very fancy (for our town, probably the nicest possible) venue, open bar, dancing, full sit down dinner, etc. Probably cost $75-100/person for the catering/meal in my guess. And it was a limited venue, too, which was full to the brim, so I would guess that the families had to choose invites carefully, as it was full. We are invited to a lot of employee weddings -- maybe one a year or so -- (as we employ a lot of 20-something young people and we are pretty nice bosses), anyway, we always go if it is local. So, anyway, the lovely bride has worked at our workplace for at least 2-3 years, and she invited quite a few co-workers as well. Dh juggled staffing for the wedding and actually closed work an hour early (which we do maybe twice a year for similar sorts of family/staff events) in order for him to be able to get to the Friday night wedding on time. I bought a new dress, wore make up, wore my "good" jewelry, and even wore heels. I.e., I went "all out" to show respect for this important event in the life of someone I really barely know (as I rarely interact with our support staff directly). She respected my dh enough to invite us; so I reciprocate that respect in appropriate ways. Isn't that what good people do? Anyway, we were seated at a table of all staff/co-workers from our workplace. There were 8 seats. I was shocked beyond words (although I kept it to myself) that there were two EMPTY chairs at our table. Apparently another employee (female, about 27) simply decided she couldn't come, at the last minute, because "her sister came into town", so she no-showed for the wedding & reception, along with her fiancé. Two empty, paid for seats at the table. I was so shocked. This employee (who no-showed) has worked for us for 3-4 years and is very reliable and very sweet. She's not generally a flake. She knows how to show up for work no matter what. But, she ditches a WEDDING for some flaky reason? My opinion of her dropped by half, just on that. I really have never seen anything like that. Who no shows to a WEDDING? I've never even heard of someone doing that! If you aren't in the hospital or jail, you better show up to a wedding that you've RSVP'ed for! Another co-worker (a professional, affluent woman in her 40s) came to the reception but skipped the ceremony because it was apparently not convenient for her to take the extra hour to come to the wedding itself. And she didn't bring her spouse because apparently he just wasn't up for the "date night" (but I think she'd RSVP'ed appropriately.) Good grief. Dh and I are atheists, but we showed up to the church on time (5-10 polite minutes early), and then cheerfully sat, sang, and prayed through the (not too long, lovely) Catholic ceremony. It's a WEDDING. It's about the couple and their families, and honoring that. WTF is wrong with people?? My opinion of her dropped significantly, too. How you behave in social situations reflects on your character. Showing respect to others (and their money and efforts and values) is meaningful and valuable.

yup, yup. yup. That was us for a decade pre-ACA, and it took dozens to hundreds of management hours each year to make it happen, plus several hours from each employee filling out those dang forms. It was so stressful, and we always knew that if *any* of our team got truly sick, we'd suddenly be priced out of insurance completely! The ACA has ended that terrifying possibility, at the very least. I don't think any employee ever could understand just how precarious our insurance was . . . We had a "good policy", but it was only good for a year, until renewal time . . . If one of our team had, say, come up with a $1,000,000 cancer (not unusual), we'd have had to cancel the entire policy . . . and before-ACA, that meant NO insurance! It was HORRIBLE to know that we couldn't protect our staff or ourselves from bankruptcy if any of us or our dependents got truly sick . . . PLUS, we couldn't offer COBRA or anything like that, as we were too small, and thus if any employee had gotten really sick so they couldn't keep working . . . we HAD to terminate their insurance (otherwise it was insurance fraud). I always felt like such a shmuck knowing that if one of our staff got really sick, their entire family would lose coverage in a matter of months . . . We lucked out and dodged that bullet. Fingers crossed that things will improve in coming years.

Our family-of-5 premium was 1850/mo last year and would be 2500/mo this year. We aren't eligible for subsidies, so that's 30k/yr for health insurance . . .. YOIKES. I thought it was bad last year. Ha ha ha ha. Good news is that this latest premium spike energized me to re-shop group coverage for our small business. We had dropped group coverage when the ACA came out for multiple reasons -- mostly because most of our staff who used it could get big subsidies (low wage industry) on the individual market, so all in all, it was a better deal for all of us to drop the group. But, 3 years later, individual premiums have doubled (while group rates have grown at a much slower rate) . . . So, now, with the group premiums via the SHOP (small business exchange part of the ACA), we can buy a group, and the preliminary investigations I've made make it look like I'll be able to purchase a great group policy. We'll probably end up spending a bit extra each month to add back this employee benefit, but it'll be better in the end if we can manage to do it. Pre-ACA, managing a tiny-group policy was a HUGE burden of management time and staff time each year (we had to re-shop each year, meaning all employees had to fill out miles long medical history forms, etc.) but now with the ACA/SHOP, there is no pricing of individuals/health history . . . We will just plug in all their birth dates, etc, and we get a standard rate that is only impacted by the ages. This incredible annual paperwork hassle was one of the big reasons we abandoned group coverage (and the SHOP / group plans were not rolled out in time for the first year of the ACA) . . . But, now that I'm investigating it again, with the drastic simplification of the paperwork, the reasonable costs, and the federal subsidies for tiny businesses, I think it'll be feasible for us to add group coverage for our staff, which should come as a nice surprise to them. :) It may all "come out in the wash" and it'll still be a big cost to us, obviously, but I'd feel better providing coverage to our staff if we can manage it, and I think we can manage it based on what I've seen so far of the SHOP premiums and the SHOP process (about a million times easier than pre-ACA small group insurance shopping, that is for SURE). So, anyway, yes, the ACA individual premiums are through the roof. BUT, decent group coverage is available through the SHOP (for very small businesses -- under 50 employees in most places), so that's really, really good. I've been a fan of the ACA. I am still a fan, but I also believe it needs help/tweaking/improvements. It's better than life-pre-ACA was (for us and our business, and I think for many, many families and businesses), but it is still a huge headache and far from perfect. I sure hope we go to a single payer plan sometime soon. I don't mind paying my share (as an individual/family and as an employer), but, the MASSIVE time suck that managing health care has been for small businesses (and now individuals) is ridiculous, as are the total costs compared to the benefits received.

Nope, it's not the same. At all. I wish it were legal to actively assist with death when it is imminent and no decent quality of life is achievable, but in general, it isn't, so withdrawal of drugs/nourishment is one option to leave suffering behind. Each of my parents died after "withdrawal" of life supports/etc. In each case, their death was imminent. If I could have given them a nice injection and allow them to go to sleep instead of risking suffering, I would have done that. But, apparently we understand that for dogs, it is more humane to hasten death than it is to allow additional hours or days of suffering, but for people, we don't worry about that humane thing. My dad's death (in ICU, respiratory failure, multi-system failure, all secondary to a stroke and a hospital-caused accident) was ugly and distressing and I will never forget it (16 years later). My mom's death (also respiratory failure, but at home, with hospice, also secondary to a stroke and Alzheimer's) was not ugly or disturbing, probably because it was mediated by the hospice prescribed morphine and anti-anxietry drugs, etc. In both cases, I'd have much preferred providing anesthesia before they were allowed to die from respiratory failure. It would be more humane for everyone, families included. At least for Mom, she had lots of good drugs on board, so I don't think she suffered. My dad suffered a lot, but we didn't know better back then to have demanded hospice/etc before allowing removal of life support. Personally, dh and I have living wills and would order/allow/instruct as active assistance in dying as is legal. Once I'm on my way out, the last thing I'd want to do is to put my family through what I went through with my Dad. I'd MUCH prefer to throw myself out a window, but by the time it comes to that, we usually don't have our wits about us.