You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Switching health care plans.
Today I sat through an excruciating 75 minute fingernail pulling torture session.
It’s called corporate mandated health care management.
A woman from Anthem Insurance stood before us and with laughter in her voice, showered us with the benefits of the new benefits.
Why is she so damn happy I am thinking to myself.
I guess I should be happy to have health care. But right now I don’t feel happy. I don’t feel lucky. In fact I’m feeling kind of sick.
The Anthem woman tells us this is going to be a lot to absorb. She is standing by a stack of papers and her film projector is ready to light up our minds.
She jokes that is a massive amount of information and we can’t possibly absorb it all in this single session.
When it comes to health plans, I can absorb about a bubble gum wrapper worth of knowledge.
She is smiling, like this is a joke, like this is the encyclopedia Britannica of health care forums.
Nobody is laughing.
There is a feeling of dread in the room.
Changing Health care.
Yikes.
Aren’t we all happy that we have health care.
I guess you don’t appreciate what you have unless you don’t have it.
Right now we have health care, and we don’t want to fill out the Magna Carta of documents before us.
And it begins. She says that out-of-pocket expenses for a family can run $8,000.
I wince. Was that just painful to me?
She talks about deductibles and in-network limits and ….
I feel a shudder run up my spine. It’s powerful, like a baby crying in an elevator.
OMG, can someone just tell me the difference between PPO and HSA?
I try to take notes. I hope that ink to paper will equate to info into brain.
Nope.
I feel myself getting angry and dismayed.
It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich of angst.
Just as I’m handling one of the concepts, she rolls onto a new health care dynamic from the Obama Health care plan.
It’s not only expensive, it is complicated.
The 75 minutes drag on.
It’s painstakingly hard, like flying a wet kite in a windless day.
After the meeting, educated news professionals come up to me and ask if I understand the difference between the 10 percent co-pay and the 20 percent co-pay.
“You think cause I am writing, I actually understand any of that?”
The person who asked me this question smiles politely.
“Yeah, right,” she stammers walking like a zombie to the front of the room where the speaker is gathering her slides.
“Good luck,” I smile.
Tier 1 Generic Drugs. Retail 10% after deductible, minimum $10. Maximum $10.
Huh?
I am frustrated looking at this health care gobbledy gook.
“It’d be easier to quit,” I say out loud to snickers from my co-workers.
You know how it’s easier not to fix something that ain’t broke.
That’s the way I felt about my current insurance. I didn’t love it, but it seems like I fall down and scrape my knee and I go to the Dr. and someone pays for it. I know that someone is me, but ignorance is bliss.
In a few weeks, everything we call insurance is getting scuttled to the winds.
We are blowing up the old and having the new crammed down our pie holes.
Suddenly we are an Anthem company.
The only Anthem I ever heard of was the Star Spangled variety.
I should be happy I have coverage.
Unfortunately I feel like Anthem is giving me a proctology exam without my consent.
Life’s Crazy