Cup of Coffee

April 4, 2024: En Français

43 Comments

Echoing DPWY. I know I said it before, but hearing about the re-signing of Naz was one of the very few recent surprising new pieces of information that I was given that made me genuinely happy to hear. He was a monster these past couple games (and the whole season of course). I love him so much.

43 thoughts on “April 4, 2024: En Français”

  1. bS getting a new hometown team.

    1. I haven't been following too closely... how near are they to actually getting what they want in Vegas?

      The idea of a baseball team moving to Vegas seems very wrong to me, given the history of the sport. Then again, the way gambling has become nationalized, I don't know that Vegas is truly any worse than most places. I'd much rather see expansion than a team move though. I'd also much rather baseball start to think about growing the brand, generally.

      1. I mean, I'm told the Cubs have a whole bar devoted to gambling, so I guess it doesn't matter whether there's a team in Vegas or not. All I know is that I hate it.

      2. There's an agreement to build but no funding yet. I think there are two lawsuits about it right now. It appears the hotel that currently occupies the site (Tropicana Las Vegas) has closed.

        The other thing is the CBA has requirements on equipment and field for an MLB team to play there. This caused problems in 2020/21 for the Blue Jays playing in Buffalo. I don't know what this means for the Giants' minor league affiliate that plays there now.

      3. I've actually watched the Twins play in Las Vegas. In 1986 they played the Angels in an exhibition/spring training game prior to the season opener -- might have been where the Las Vegas Stars used to play (Cashman field?). Prospect Mark McGwire was there, alongside future ROY Jose Canseco. In all probability, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named took the loss.

      4. Apropos of the gambling, I saw a piece yesterday about how college hoopsters are getting attacked by disgruntled prop bettors after games. Social media feeds and texts filled with invective because some kid made a late three pointer or didn't (resulting in a team covering or not), etc. Another player was accosted by his Doordash delivery person.

        It's a goddamn disease.

    3. So a caucus in Sac-town next year to see Twins-A's with Doc hosting us at his rebuilt townhome? If we charter a plane we might get a better rate.

      1. Raley Field (or whatever it is called now) is a lovely AAA stadium down by the river. Probably big enough to accommodate pathetically small A's crowds.

        2. Different ex-Twin weighs in on the facilities. Congrats to the River Cats on getting a huge upgrade next year.

  3. I joined Hospitality Minnesota this past year. In December I hosted a meeting at the joint for all area restaurant/hotel owners with the legal team from Hospitality MN to explain the new labor laws for 2024. Today I was asked if I wanted to be one of 2 restaurant owners to meet at the Capital with Governor Walz and the Hospitality MN leadership. I agreed to go. It should be an interesting conversation.

    1. I have shaken hands with the governor, and not euphemistically. I got to talk with Tim for about 30 seconds when I worked for the DFL several years ago. Nice guy, seemed real genuine for a politician.

      1. I am looking forward to it. I did communicate with his staff quite a bit during the pandemic. Back then I met with Senator Klobuchar at the joint. She was a very nice person as well.

  4. Fighting my mother’s hospital, which is trying to discharge her to a nursing home because they clearly want to reduce their staffing on the med floor regardless of patient need. My siblings & I have basically taken over the social worker’s role because she was trying to make the nursing home discharge without looking at other care options. The hospitalist assigned as her provider is the hatchet man for hospital administration; he claims she will only marginally recover from the brain injury and will be in a nursing home, assisted living, memory care, or adult group home for the rest of her life, while the rehabilitation specialists said he’s absolutely wrong and she needs continued intensive OT & PT to attain the best degree of post-encephalitis rehabilitation.

    Looking for swing beds in other hospitals in the region because the rehab specialists at the in-patient rehab center we tried to get her into (but were denied because insurance) said a nursing home is the worst case scenario for a patient of her age and rehabilitative need.

    2. Man, so sorry to hear about this fiasco. Don't want to wade to far into forbidden zone, but man the health care system in this country is just so toxic right now. My wife is the Program Director of Rehab at our local nursing home up here. The stories she tells. I think the entire system is set up to say "no" to medication, to treatment, to medical procedures. In so many situations it is an accountant, and not a medical provider, who makes the decision on proper treatment. Even for my shingles, I had 3 prescriptions that the doctor said was best for my situation, that were denied by insurance as unnecessary. This while I would be up all night long in agonizing pain. When we go to Europe later this month, we may just scout out a move when we get closer to retirement.

      1. Absolutely.

        My daughter and I spent waaaay too many hours over nearly a year trying to get hospitals, doctor's offices surgeon and anesthesiologist) and two insurers (one from her former employer as primary and mine as secondary) to talk to each other to settle bills for her emergency, life-saving surgery while on a vacation. It was effing absurd.

      2. I am currently writing a report for work on the claim denial trends in Medicare Advantage plans versus traditional Medicare. Suffice it to say, if people really knew how commercial insurers operate, they would be begging for a government takeover. Example: A Connecticut hospital recently laid off 60 employees because their cash flow has been squeezed so badly by Medicare Advantage plan denying claims. Now, on appeal more than half of those denials are overturned, sometimes its even as high as 75%. But it costs hospitals a lot of money to appeal denials, and the longer the payers can stretch out the claim processing the longer they can keep their money. They love the float, as one of our doctors told me. So go figure. You have one player in the market legally bound as fiduciaries to maximize profits for its shareholders, and the only way to do that is to deny care. That's our system. Best clinical care in the world (if you have access), absolute worst way to pay for it.

        1. legally bound as fiduciaries to maximize profits for its shareholders

          There is nothing in corporate (by)laws that say they have to deliver profits to shareholders. Amazon broke this "promise" for years. Boeing is a great example: for most of its history, Boeing pursued safety as its number one goal. Crash reports of their pre-MAX planes in recent decades amount to multiple rare chances all happening. And look at where they are now. Nothing changed legally because it was entirely corporate culture that changed. There are larger things you could point to but we need to understand very well, there is no legal obligation for this; this is people choosing to do this because they want to.

        1. About 40% of all healthcare costs in the US are paid by the government. Medicare, Medicaid, VA, active duty military, etc. About 10% are now paid directly by patients. Commercial payers don't pay nearly as big a percentage of the bill as they used to. Yet they report multi-billion dollar profits every quarter.

    4. Oh, brother do I feel you. The doing the social worker‘s job was my second job for a hot minute. Not great. I’m sending the positive vibes and waves in your direction. My

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