Now, let me say for the record, my dear friend (who prefers her name not be mentioned, so we'll call her A.) was far from a Bridezilla, not that I could really translate that into German anyway. She and her now-husband have been together for 6 years and lived together for almost 2 and so she was ready to eschew some of the grander absurdities of wedding traditions — including letting her poor blogger friend crash in her living room for a week. But there is a fully functioning bridal magazine business attempting to sell more expensive dresses, bigger parties, larger cakes and the full range of pre- and post-nuptial activities for which American weddings have come to be known. There might not be wedding rehearsals, but they'll tell you how to have a rehearsal dinner. In a hilarious mistranslation in the "biggest" wedding planning book, Der Perfekte Hochzeitsplaner, the author tells brides that their dresses should match their mothers' (as opposed to matching the "colors" of the wedding or whatever horseshit they're pedaling in the States these days). The car that drove my friend and her new husband from the church on Saturday even came equipped with a "Just Married" sign...in English! There are gift registries (though hardly anyone actually uses them, since most people these days seemingly live together before marriage) table gifts and wedding cakes — and, as in America, literally everything that has "bridal" before it costs twice as much as the same thing for a normal party.

On the other hand, my German friends were shocked that anyone would have an afternoon reception that ends before dinner (as my sister has planned for the fall); my friend and her husband attended a wedding last year in which the ceremony started at 8:30 in the morning... and the reception went until 8:30 the next morning. There is no rest (or sex) for the wicked, and their reception went until 4:30 am on Sunday morning. Thankfully, such parties leave no time or energy for "official" brunches, but if they keep importing our made-up, WIC-propagated traditions, there are going to be a lot more unhappy, hungover Germans cursing American culture, let me tell you.

They're getting caught giving bonuses to employees who can find ways to boot sick people off their rolls. Because, see, health insurance is only profitable for companies when they can sell it (and the fear of really large medical bills you can't pay) and they don't have to actually, you know, help you pay those bills.

So, in California, the law forbids insurance companies from tying any compensation for claims reviewers to their claims decisions. This leetle tidbit of legal information apparently passed over the heads of some people at Health Net Inc., who openly praised and provided bonuses to one of their underwriters for her excellent work in rescinding the insurance policies of sick people, claiming she was an underwriter, not a claims adjuster. Between 2000 and 2006, the company avoided paying $35 million in medical expenses through the work of this underwriter and her colleagues. Um, yay? The information is all coming out because one of the people whose policies they rescinded — a 51-year old hair salon owner — is suing to get her chemo for breast cancer covered after they rescinded her policy.

Like, great job health insurance companies! You wonder why people think even the government can do a better job than you, despite the fact that nearly every poll shows we regard large swaths of our government with contempt? It's because you do shit like this all the time. Everyone knows someone who's been screwed by a health insurance company, everyone has gotten dicked around at least a little by a health insurance company and, frankly, everyone is paying out the ass anyway for health insurance (except for the 47 million Americans who don't have any). So, maybe, you should take some of the $1 billion dollars you and your insurance compatriots spent on just lobbying the federal government (and God only knows what untold gobs of money on your army of lawyers) and try spending that on patient care, mmkay? I'll bet it might actually cost you less than figuring out ways to screw us all over.

Congress OKs Expanded Kids' Health Care [ABC News]
U.S. Health Care Politics [CBS News]
Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders [LA Times]
Lobbying Spending Database [Opensecrets.org]