I'm stuck in a Kafkaesque situation w/my insurance company (Anthem). I currently get infusions of a biologic for Crohn's. These are incredibly expensive as well as inconvenient. I'm lucky, in that my insurance company pays for almost all of this.
The same drug is now available in the form of a self-administered pen which is far less expensive and more convienient. However, that falls under the purview of CVS Caremark, who Anthem has designated as its pharmacy benefits manager. CVS Caremark is denying the pen, saying I have to try a whole host of other meds which do not work for me first.
I talked to Anthem yesterday, and they have no idea how to get this approved. Their best suggestion is that my doctor schedule a call with the CVS doctor to argue with them. My doctor is not motivated to do this, as I'm already getting a treatment that works for me.
So I'm stuck wasting hours every few weeks for an infusion that could be replaced by an injection I give myself. And the hilarious part is that the insurance company stands to benefit the most, as they would pay far less.
This is the kind of thing that, if we had actual socialized medicine, I might be able to appeal to a government official to fix. But how can you appeal corporate bureaucracy?
There are mushroom based gummies available in local smokeshops due to some loophole in the that this particular strain of shrooms is not explicitly illegal.
My gf just got into shrooms. She started getting them from her weed dealer. His shrooms were overpriced, and hit or miss quality. Then we ran into a girl with a shroom hat at a festival, and it turns out she's a great source. Selling shrooms is her primary source of income. She makes little vegan shroom "cookies" (which are more like fudge), and also sells raw shrooms. She's a licensed massage therapist, and seems to launder the income by charging you for a massage.
I was specifically referring to Hitler's territorial expansion prior to WWII.
Putin's expansion into Crimea and Ukraine reminds me very much of Hitler's expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Its my firm belief that we're at the "Peace in our time" phase, just before WWIII, and it would be better to nip it in the bud and take action now, rather than 2 years from now, when Putin has had more time to prepare, and he attempts to invade a country that we are obligated by treaty to defend.
Looking at these photos, I think we (NATO) should intervene with troops and air support. For all the cries of "never again", we just sit on our hands and watch a Hitler like dictator destroy a neighboring country in a territorial war. Its clear Russia's army is a paper tiger, and I doubt Putin has the balls to use nukes.
My girlfriend is a "camgirl", and this behavior reminds me of the behavior of the lower tier, more shady cam / phone-sex sites.
The bigger sites that take a large percentage of the customer's money (40-50% goes to the site, not the model) also protect the models from chargebacks. Sites that take a lower percentage do not. One site she worked for ("cam model directory") has a spreadsheet of customers who are known to issue chargebacks that the models have to monitor before taking payment.
What is going to happen to cam sites, like MyFreeCams, Chaturbate, etc..?
I assume these rules will make accepting paymets impossible for any adult site with live-streaming, and for Cam sites, that's their core business.
Potential answers include a move to cryptocurrency to avoid payment processors, or a move to strictly non-explicit content to appease them.
In the near term, either would decimate these sites. In the long term, crypto might be better for performers, as the cam sites could take a far smaller cut of payments.
My friend is a camgirl and OF girl. I take most of her pics and vids on my iPhone. So I have thousands of nudes of her on my phone.
She's 24, but could pass for much younger. I'm paranoid that I'll get flagged.. Especially since all of her tik-toks with any skin shown, or any drinking get flagged.
The lack of transparency and discoverability on OF is a pain for both subscribers and creators. And the creators do work really hard.
My ex-sugar gf is an OF creator. I was with her when she started (transitioned from MyFreeCams where I met her, and brought some of her members with her). She worked her ass off to claw her way to the top 3% which is where she was when I broke things off with her. She spent way, way more time on social media, promoting herself and her brand, than she did actually making content. There are groups of creators that promote each other's social media & content on twitter and ig, and its critical to get hooked into one of those groups to succeed if you're not already a major IG or Twitter star with millions of followers.
Even at 3%, she was not making a huge amount of $$. I wish OF had more transparency around how the percentages relate to actual income..
My SO is a camgirl with an onlyfans. She's transitioned from mostly live streaming on MFC to mostly doing shoots and vids for OnlyFans. OnlyFans has become a substantial part of her income.
I flew last week. Except for airline lounges being closed and a lack of beverage/snack service on the plane, it was one of the most pleasant trips I've taken.
There were no lines at security. Three of the 4 airplanes I was on were nearly empty, there was a minimum of crowding around the boarding area, and due to middle seats being blocked there was plenty of overhead bin space on the one flight I had that wasn't empty. All in all, it was fantastic.
There are a lot more people at home right now, but many are out of work and spending less. An increase in eyeballs don't always translate to an increase in revenue.
My girlfriend is a camgirl, and she tells me that while she has more people in her "room", they are tipping less and she's making less.
I've been trying to encourage her to do just this, but she does not always take my advice. She had her mind set on putting this behind her. She does not always make the best decisions.
Sure, but bitcoin may be hard for her grandparents friends at church to figure out, for example. Heck, I've worked for tech companies, and I can't figure it out. Gofundme is comparatively easy to explain.
That reminds me: Does anybody know of any US crowdfunding sites that are not hostile to sex workers? That seems unlikely after FOSTA, but it does not hurt to ask, and I figure this would be the place to do it.
Any unexpected expense can knock you down when you're on the edge. Unexpected expenses are how people become homeless.
I am friends with a camgirl who is a prime example of this. In her case, she made a go of full-time camming, and thought she was doing well. What she didn't understand is that the site she worked for paid her as a contractor and withheld nothing. She never thought much about taxes, and all her previous jobs had withheld taxes, so she didn't pay quarterly estimated taxes. Last month, when she went to file her taxes, she realized she owed thousands. She has been struggling to pay this while other unexpected expenses mount (car repairs). She's struggling with the decision on whether to pay her taxes or her rent, and is about to become homeless.
The super irritating thing to me is that she had a gofundme setup for her friends and family to donate to help with her tax issue. The campaign was going well (close to 50% complete) but gofundme took it down and refunded all the donations. This was likely because they don't want to be associated with sex workers, and she apparently had a link to it from her cam-site page.
The same drug is now available in the form of a self-administered pen which is far less expensive and more convienient. However, that falls under the purview of CVS Caremark, who Anthem has designated as its pharmacy benefits manager. CVS Caremark is denying the pen, saying I have to try a whole host of other meds which do not work for me first.
I talked to Anthem yesterday, and they have no idea how to get this approved. Their best suggestion is that my doctor schedule a call with the CVS doctor to argue with them. My doctor is not motivated to do this, as I'm already getting a treatment that works for me.
So I'm stuck wasting hours every few weeks for an infusion that could be replaced by an injection I give myself. And the hilarious part is that the insurance company stands to benefit the most, as they would pay far less.
This is the kind of thing that, if we had actual socialized medicine, I might be able to appeal to a government official to fix. But how can you appeal corporate bureaucracy?