I am listening to bad music on speakerphone, interspersed with an excessive number of recorded apologies for why it’s taking so long. Eventually I will reach a real live person. Let’s see which comes first – the person or the completion of this post? A race between a turtle and a tortoise I think.
It has been a busy little morning.
The bottle of aspirin is there for scale. It is a very large bottle that, when purchased, contained 500 low-dose aspirins. The pile of paper was retrieved from the file marked “Health Insurance.” Not Health Care–that is a different file entirely. This one is just Health Insurance. These documents and forms and notes are by no means comprehensive. They go back only to last August, and do not include fat manuals that expired in December and were replaced by new fat manuals effective in January. Recent developments require that I must choose new Health Insurance and get signed up for it before my current coverage stops, which, I learned yesterday, will happen on April Fool’s Day. Perfect.
Mind you, I have no complaints about the coverage I have had since last August, and I have no complaint about needing to choose new coverage because circumstances have changed. I just think the whole process should be A LITTLE SIMPLER AND MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD and that it should not come with really bad music.
I know how to deal with these little bumps in the road. For example, a person could go to bed early with a really good book.
I cannot begin to tell you how good that book is. I recommend you read what PJ (aka Pamela Grath of Dog Ears Books) had to say in this review on her Books in Northport blog. I value PJ’s advice. She is my bookseller the way other people are my physicians or my farmers. I mailed her a check. She mailed me the book. I started reading it last night and felt much better about many things. I woke up this morning prepared to Deal With Matters.
Breaking news! An answer! In just 21 minutes!
All things considered, that is not bad. Not only that, but the answers to my questions cheered me up considerably. How often does that happen? Not nearly often enough, but isn’t it nice that it happened today? It is.
While I was waiting for the bad music to end and writing this I was also making potato salad with local eggs hard-cooked in the steamer so that I would not get distracted and burn the house down.
Altogether a satisfactory end to an unpromising beginning.
Torch Lake Views 
Karma
March 17, 2016
I love the idea that you decided to blog while waiting on hold! Makes it feel far less like wasted time!
Gerry
March 17, 2016
Not to mention that blogging kept me from behaving badly! And as it turned out, it seems that all is going to go well.
Dawn
March 17, 2016
Glad the answers were good. Insurance is so complicated. I had a few procedures done at the end of 2015 and I couldn’t make any sense of the multitude of bills we received for months later. And I LOVE the colors of the eggs. So beautiful! I’ll go read PJ’s review.
Gerry
March 17, 2016
I love the colors of the eggs too. Happy Easter on St Patrick’s Day!
Molly
March 17, 2016
Note to self: next time you’re on hold for 45 minutes with the doctor’s office, WRITE SOMETHING. And I just love this more than I can say: “She is my bookseller the way other people are my physicians or my farmers.”
Gerry
March 17, 2016
Definitely write something, no matter what. When your collected poems are published you will undoubtedly wish to do a reading at Dog Ears Books!
tootlepedal
March 17, 2016
Sometimes I wonder why the Americans don’t look at our National Health Service (with all its imperfections) and beat their politicians with sticks until they get one.
I am glad that you got a good result after your long wait. My power company chooses music specifically to annoy customers I think.
Gerry
March 17, 2016
Well, we sort of did that, and in spite of the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth on the right over the heresy of the Affordable Care Act, on balance it was progress. It would have been better, of course, to simply extend Medicare to the entire population, but heaven forfend. (An extraordinary number of Americans believe that Canadians are lined up at the border to pay out of pocket for medical service in the US which they are denied at home. We are a credulous people, as we have demonstrated over the course of this interminable campaign.)
Your power company, I have concluded, has no live staff at all.
tootlepedal
March 19, 2016
The power company is just doing business in the modern style with no discernible care for its customers at all.
What is really annoying for us is that our present government seems intent on turning our health servcie into a American style insurance based ice in spite of all the evidence that it is more expensive and less satisfactory (except to the rich)….and doing this while saying that they aren’t doing it. between them and the power company, I sometimes wonder about my sanity.
Gerry
March 19, 2016
Whenever I worry about my sanity I take two dogs for a walk on the beach. In what might pass for winter. Whenever you worry about your sanity you take off on a 50-mile bicycle ride. In what might pass for winter. Clearly we are both right to be worried. However, if we keep up this regimen we are going to live a long, long time – easily long enough to be a problem to our respective annoying bureaucracies. Satisfactory.
tootlepedal
March 20, 2016
Keep worrying and keep walking and remember to take your camera with you.
shoreacres
March 18, 2016
Well, I’m not quite so sanguine about our health care system since the changes wrought by the ACA. Never mind the increase in premiums and deductible; those weren’t so bad. What irks me is that my annual physical now consists of playing 20 questions with a physician’s assistant, who then holds a mirror under my nose just to be sure I’m really breathing. No more blood tests, no checking for anemia, high blood sugar levels, etc. etc. After two years of such a joke, I bought a blood pressure cuff and a hand mirror and gave myself a physical. So far, all’s good.
But 21 minutes is a victory, indeed, and good answers are far better than interminable governmental/bureaucratic waffling. On the other hand, when I laundered my phone on Christmas Eve, I not only roused a Verizon elf from his slumbers, he was able to remotely transfer my number to an old phone I had lying around, and in fifteen minutes, I was good to go. That wa a Christmas miracle, indeed!
Gerry
March 18, 2016
We knew going in that we’d see this very differently, didn’t we!
I’m sorry your premiums and deductibles increased. Many other people were, for the first time, able to acquire insurance, and thus to pay for health care that had previously been out of reach. Mind you, I am not a fan of having health insurance companies interposed between people and their health care. Thus my preference for a single payer system, such as Medicare for all. I know we will never agree about that. I can live with our differences. I’ll bet you can too.
I completely agree that the Wellness Exam is silly. So does my primary care physician, who whips through the list and then actually examines me on the same dime. Weight, height and blood pressure are checked by a nurse every time I visit the doctor for any reason. Diagnostic blood tests are covered. Perhaps a review of your coverage is in order? (Although I do, truly, understand that it is a miserable way to spend a day.)
All large organizations are bureaucratic and devoted to waffling. Public ones, private ones, and nonprofit ones. And it seems that all of them are persuaded that absolutely awful telephone answering systems are better than simply hiring and training enough real people to answer the phones so that other real people can solve real problems as painlessly as possible.
shoreacres
March 18, 2016
Ah, and there’s the rub: the definition of “diagnostic.” Blood tests taken to prove or disprove the existence of a specific problem are covered. Blood tests such as lipids and fasting blood sugar are not covered by Medicare for an annual Wellness Exam. I’ve been around and around about that, since being billed a cool grand for lab tests.
And, since Medicare doesn’t pay for them — at least they refused in my case, despite multiple phone calls and letters — my secondary doesn’t pay a dime, either.
I’m happy for those who now have coverage. No disagreement, there. But I feel very badly for my older friends who are having to drive as much as an hour to find a doctor who will accept Medicare patients. The phrase “mixed blessing” comes to mind. 🙂
Gerry
March 18, 2016
Absolutely a mixed blessing. (I am one of those older friends. Believe me, I know whereof you speak. Of course, given where I live, 45 minute drives to medical appointments are routine. Sigh.)
P.j. grath
March 18, 2016
I’m going to steer clear of the medical insurance topic and just say how happy I am that your wait turned out to be brief and was concluded to your satisfaction, despite the bad music (which I agree should NOT be part of the deal!), and how surprised and delighted I was to find myself and my bookstore described in such glowing terms. You are a peach, Gerry! But I’ve known that for years now. 🙂 xxxooo
Gerry
March 18, 2016
I think there is virtually unanimous agreement about bad music! Also about the excellence of Dog Ears Books.
Gerry
March 18, 2016
Andi has been sending emails instead of comments. She has given permission for them to be posted. Today’s:
Glad you had good results in the end. I appreciate the link to the Northport book store and look forward to visiting it. “Your book seller’s” review was very well done and the eggs are more beautiful than any Easter eggs I’ve seen. Andi
And the response:
Thank you Andi! . . . . When you come back Up Here you might drop by King Orchards on M-88 for beautiful eggs. Gerry
WOL
March 18, 2016
Wow! Crown you Queen of Multitasking! I invariably put the phone on speaker and lay it down on my desk and do other stuff while I’m waiting. Potato salad. One of life’s little pleasures. I make mine chunky with baked potatoes left overnight in the fridge (not as gummy as boiled), chopped black olives, chopped Kosher dills and a touch of mustard in the mayo, and celery if I’ve got it.
Gerry
March 18, 2016
That sounds very, very good. I have already eaten all of my potato salad. I am thinking I should make more.
WOL
March 24, 2016
Speaking of baked potatoes I rub my potatoes with olive oil and bake them in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. The olive oil softens the skins, so you can eat skin and all, and apparently the olive oil seals them so that they will keep in the fridge just set uncovered on the rack for a couple days without “fridge drying.” They’ll reheat just dandy in the microwave after being sliced open in a soup bowl, “loosened’ with a fork, slathered with butter, “filled” with crumbled bacon or any kind of leftover meat cut up in little bits, drained left over veggies like broccoli or peas or carrots or onions, maybe a drizzle of Ranch dressing or whatever else leftover that sounds good (chili? Please!), then topped with sprinkle cheese (grated cheese of choice). Nuts. Now I’m hungry.
Gerry
March 28, 2016
That is always the problem with discussing favorite dishes. I’m glad you made the sacrifice, as I believe I will try your procedure later today. We are recovering from the cold slushies and need something warming.
isathreadsoflife
March 26, 2016
Blogging while waiting on the phone ? That is a good idea. I am rather impatient and prefer to call back later.The advantages of your method is you got your lunch ready and we enjoyed participating in your eventful morning. So thank you Gerry, also for the advice on reading “When Rivers Change Direction”.
Gerry
March 28, 2016
Hello Isa! I’m glad you liked the book suggestion. I know I’ve enjoyed yours. This morning I’m waiting by the phone again, but this time for a callback. No bad music. Satisfactory.