There's a chip on my shoulder

Man, I am pissed off. But not about Cheney lying during the debate, or the latest report that there were no WMDs (although I'm mad about those too). Nope, today the chip on my shoulder is with regards to... Dental Insurance.

Dental Insurance? you might ask. What's the big deal? Well, my first year there was no dental. After much hullabaloo, in my second year Yale signed on with Bollinger Insurance, which probably gave us the crappiest dental plan ever. It was like a $600 premium with only 50% deductible for most things and a $1000 cap. Insane! So, no one signed up.

This year, it's onto the Dental Discount Plan. With a motto like "The Leader in Discount Health Care in America", this one already makes me nervous. But then, nobody in New Haven that I've ever heard of takes it. For Yale to make such a big deal about excellence and quality, and to then foist some cheap ass dental discount card off on its grad students as a substitute for real insurance is just insulting. A "Community of Scholars"? More like a "Community of Tired-Ass Workers with Rotting Teeth", you mother-fuckers lame administrators.

Why the big fuss? After putting off seeing the dentist due to no viable insurance options for the past two years, I finally caved in and went today. The estimate? Over $1000 for the check-up, 3 fillings, and a mouth guard so I won't grind my teeth down to the bone. For a second I thought maybe i could claim worker's comp for the causal relationship of grad school stress to my teeth grinding. But then I remembered, hey, I don't have worker's comp either.