A lot has happened over the last few weeks. Some of it was sad, some of it was frustrating, and some of it was a lot of fun. My thoughts right now don’t really fit under a single theme, so in the spirit of centering it around a timeframe, I am naming this one after October 10, or “Double Ten Day.” The holiday doesn’t mean much to me personally, but my parents often referred to it after growing up in China and later Taiwan.
Reflections. Starting with the sad news, one of my best friends from MIT, Elliot Schwartz, passed away on September 24. For the last couple of years, we had been doing monthly video calls that ran for hours at a time. We started them after Elliot and I discussed a mutual desire to invest more in relationships (see Navigating the Friendship Recession). During those calls, we covered just about everything in our lives. Elliot always loved gossip, so he even enjoyed hearing stories about my day-to-day life here in Portland, and he had plenty of his own stories from his work in volunteering for the Democratic Party in Maine, his national ice skating judging and international officiating, and helping lead the data analytics for the US Olympic team.
His death was pretty unexpected to me. When we scheduled our next call for September 30, I assumed we would be catching up after I got home from my trip to Bend. Then, in early September, while I was visiting our daughter in South Carolina, Elliot shared the news of his brain disease with our friend group over text. On September 17, he let us know that he would be going in for surgery on Tuesday, September 22. Because he was careful never to use the word “cancer” with us, I had no idea from his description how serious it was. On the morning of his surgery, we were texting each other while he was in pre-op, and he asked how I was doing. He passed away two days later, and I spent part of my time in Bend arranging a last-minute trip to New York for his funeral.
In Jewish tradition, burial happens as soon as possible after a death, out of respect for the person who died, and someone stays with the body until the burial. Elliot’s service was originally planned for Tuesday or Wednesday, but it ended up on Thursday, October 1, on Long Island. Our close MIT friend group all came out to say goodbye.
Looking back, I’m grateful that Marsha and I had a chance to visit Elliot at his new home in Maine in 2023, and I’m happy that we started our monthly calls. At the same time, this whole thing still feels a bit surreal. Elliot never expected to live a long time, since his dad died just shy of 59. Still, Elliot was looking forward to having more time, and he was already planning trips to Canada, Belgium, and Kazakhstan. So while he had some expectation of a shorter life, this all came so much sooner than any of us anticipated. On the evening of September 30, when we would have been on our call, I was on a flight to New York. I looked at Marsha and said, “I need to remove my calendar reminder of my monthly call with Elliot.”
Elliot was always pretty much a “matter-of-fact” type of guy, and I know he wouldn’t have wanted to suffer. Given what actually happened medically, I know the quickness of his decline was better for him. It just feels weird.
Health. On a more hopeful note, my second stent placement on October 5 seemed to go OK! Just like with my first stent on August 14, I totally fell asleep right after getting home. By the next day, though, I walked with a neighbor to Bruja-ja, a comedy show at Brujos, a local brewpub. The irony was that my meal the day after a heart procedure wasn’t the most heart healthy, as I thoroughly enjoyed a chorizo platter from El Viejon, the Mexican food pop-up there.
For this first week of recovery, I’ve been told not to lift anything heavier than 5 to 10 pounds. I’m looking forward to the 12-week cardiac rehab program and to the next six months on dual antiplatelet therapy, which I’ve been told is what I need to complete to regain eligibility for my kidney transplant. (For background, see Returning in 2026, A Spring Catch-Up, The Detour, The Fourth of July Grab Bag, and Stage One.)
Finance. Of course, healthcare isn’t a fun topic for us right now in the financial sense, either. In less than a month, we start open enrollment for individual marketplace health plans. We’ve already been notified that our premiums will go up by 37 percent in 2027 (from $1,736 per month to $2,380 per month), and our individual out-of-pocket maximums will go up from $7,500 to $12,000.
So, over a full year, we’re looking at another $7,728 of premiums (from $20,832 to $28,560), and I will certainly need to pay that extra $4,500 to reach my out-of-pocket maximum. The new plan also drops CVS retail pharmacies from its network. We have a CVS in the neighborhood, but I generally prefer to use Amazon, Costco, OHSU Pharmacy, or the nearby Safeway anyway.
I considered upgrading to a Silver or Gold plan, since the lower out-of-pocket maximums seem to make up for most of the premium differences between the plans. However, all bronze plans on the Oregon marketplace can be paired with a health savings account, and I want to keep that deduction, so we’re sticking with bronze.
Business. Beyond our personal finances, the bigger issue is the overall business environment for healthcare insurance in Oregon and elsewhere. The enhanced ACA subsidies expired at the end of 2025. The impact was “adverse selection,” where healthy people forgo health insurance altogether, leaving a less healthy population participating in the plans. In Oregon, the individual market shrank from about 161,000 enrollees in 2025 to about 140,000 in 2026 (Insurance Business), and Moda’s own rate filing projected that “lower morbidity individuals will be more likely to drop coverage” (Oregon DFR).
Providence and PacificSource are both exiting Oregon’s individual marketplace for 2027. Moda is exiting eight Oregon counties. Surprisingly, Bend is impacted here, as Deschutes County is one of the eight (Bend Bu lletin). Multnomah County is still covered, but Moda requested an average rate increase of 25 percent, and the state approved individual market increases averaging 21.6 percent (Oregon DFR).
Moda lost money on individual plans here, too. According to its 2025 annual statement, included in its rate filing with the state, Moda’s Oregon individual business had an underwriting loss of about $14.9 million in 2025, or roughly $38.54 per member per month (Moda rate filing).
Politics. In the middle of all this, we received a $1,000 check covering both Marsha and me, along with a letter signed by Donald Trump. We received the check because we, along with others who are above 400 percent of the federal poverty line, purchased coverage through HealthCare.gov without subsidies. The letter calls the money a “one-time $500 REFUND” of fees that the Biden administration “overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov.”
I don’t think this was the right thing to do from either a policy or a messaging perspective. On policy, these refunds are going to people like us, who can afford to pay, while the enhanced subsidies for everyone else have expired. On messaging, most of the letter reads as criticism of the previous administration.
I was surprised that taxpayer funds could be used to send a letter like this, but apparently the President is exempt from the Hatch Act. And because the letter came with an actual check, it apparently isn’t considered pure political messaging, even if it reads that way. The timing was also hard to miss, since these letters started going out on September 30, about five weeks before the midterm elections (CBS News).
PNW. My last few weeks haven’t been all bad, though. In late September, I had a great time in Bend with my Latitude friends Wayne, Kent, and Larry, the same group I went to Sedona with last year (How Guys’ Trips Change As We Age). Kent named the trip the “2026 Mancation Oregon.” We hiked Steelhead Falls and Smith Rock, visited Tumalo Falls and Sparks Lake, and made the rounds of a number of brewpubs, including Wild Ride, 10 Barrel, and Deschutes. We also took a kayak tour with Wanderlust Tours, where our guide, Isaac, was great and knew a lot about both the natural surroundings and the local history.
The Smith Rock hike was a highlight and also particularly tiring. According to my Apple Watch, the hike involved 1,212 feet of elevation gain, and my heart rate peaked around 150 beats per minute. I think I went over the heart rate guidance I’ve been given by the cardiologist, but I was fine!
Overall, we followed a fun itinerary that Kent prompted Claude to assemble. The agenda was perhaps a bit too aggressive. On the first day, we skipped Pilot Butte, dinner at DRAKE, and a nightcap at Crux Fermentation Project because the guys’ flights got in late. On Saturday, we had a late lunch at the food carts at Wild Ride after Steelhead Falls and Smith Rock, so we were still full when we got to dinner at Ariana. I wish I could have tried the tasting menu, but the butternut squash soup and the scallops were good. On Sunday, we skipped Todd Lake after Tumalo Falls and Sparks Lake, and we also skipped dinner at Zydeco Kitchen & Cocktails. As we fell “behind” schedule, we kept opting out of things. The good news is that we never ran out of stuff to do!
Tech. Of course, we settled up via Splitwise again this year. We all paid for different things during the trip. I covered the rental van, Wayne booked the kayak tour, and we each picked up meals, but Larry booked the Airbnb, which was the biggest expense, so the rest of us owed him. Unfortunately, we tried Splitwise’s native way of settling up, and it was totally janky. For some reason, the Plaid connection to my bank failed, and I had to reauthorize it.
On top of that, Larry could only withdraw $500 per week through the integrated payment partner. Between my $483.57, Kent’s $582.12, and Wayne’s $520.03, Larry was owed $1,585.72, so it would take him at least four weeks just to get his own money out, which was super lame. We should have just used PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle rather than the native Splitwise payment features.
So that’s the last few weeks. I lost one of my best friends, got a second stent, and am facing higher healthcare costs. Still, I also had a great trip with old friends and learned a lesson about payment apps. There were highs and lows and a lot in between. I’m still processing everything.
Happy Double Ten to everyone who celebrates it!
AI disclosure: I used AI tools during the drafting and editing process to help clarify structure and language. All ideas, judgments, and final wording are my own.
Hi Steve, I am happy to hear your stent went well. You are getting closer to transplantation step by step.