Some Words

And now it is time for me to go back to school. The second semester formally starts with a confirmation that it is easier to study on campus than at home with my wife watching the Golden Globes in the other room.

We’ve also had a lesson in how company health plan changes can totally screw people over. My wife’s company switched health plans, which meant that she had a hard time getting health care services. Now, you would think that if people were dispensing medications that have withdrawal symptoms, they would consider it below the belt to try to step out on the first month of the prescription, especially when they said it was covered. However, we could not acquire it without the insurance card. We ended up paying for it out of pocket, as the looming threat of withdrawal symptoms will tend to have a chilling effect on waiting for the HMO to get off its but and tell the pharmacy that you should be given the medication (despite their statements over the phone). This will doubtless take us into act two, in which the HMO says that because we paid for it, we clearly didn’t want the services that they promised over the phone but could not deliver in in a time frame that did not cause a lapse in care. This is twelve days after coverage began, and we could not get a covered medication at the promised rate.

Dear Obama administration: Can we get that national health care already? Can that be day one or two? My Canadian family members never seem to have to deal with this crap.