My First Month of Medicare - Nip and Tuck and Holy Fuck
Welcome to the first days of civilized healthcare - Can it be true?
Today is the big day, people:
My First Day of Medicare Coverage!
I’m about to get a new lease on life. My 65th birthday is this month, March 25th, and my healthcare insurance, once a millstone around my neck, transforms into something useful. —Something extraordinary, in fact! — in light of how people in this country hang on by their fingertips to a semblance of wellbeing.
On Medicare, starting today, my insurance premium bills are going from FIVE figures to THREE figures! I don’t have to eat dog food in retirement; how lovely. I can get all the things done I put off and made light of, because I didn’t want to endure the cost, spare an emergency.
Welcome to Amerika, baby!
I have so many thoughts.
One, I definitely do “feel entitled.” Fight like hell for the living, as Mother Jones said. I have been working steady for fifty years. What a racket!
I remember my first wage-job at fifteen, as a McDonalds franchise “Golden Girl.” I was so proud of my wrinkled social security card in my little beaded wallet.
I made $2 an hour, which was a historic 1974 increase from $1.65 previously! The Feds hadn’t raised the minimum wage since 1968. The GOP fought it all the way. Of course! Just like they aim to kill Medicare and minimum wage today. Stripes never changed.
I needed affordable comprehensive healthcare years ago. We all do.
I think about what our family has been through in recent years. I had to borrow money for eye surgery one time; terrifying. I worried we would go bankrupt every time we had a hospital emergency.
Before Obamacare, my partner Jon was in debilitating pain from a busted hip — he needed a replacement. And how had he been injured so young? —Saving people’s lives as a municipal Marine first responder, making very little at it. No union. The people who put their lives on their line, so often have the worst healthcare. (Eventually as shop steward, he got his Marine Rescure Unit into the Fire Dept, instead of “Park and Rec”).
Another knee-slapper from the old days: before The ACA Act, Americans were stymied by a Catch-22 known as “Pre-Existing Conditions.”
If you had one of these mysterious “conditions,” insurers could deny you a policy. No doctor for you! And as Nancy Pelosi and other feminists put it, “The insurance companies considered being a woman, a pre-existing condition.”
Women are still denied elemental care because of our gender. We are punished over nothing but biology. American men are not on easy street, but they too are shocked at the disparity. We all know it — why doesn’t it change? The whole abortionmdebate is, at its heart, a notion that women are chattel, and their healthcare relegated as such.
I was once told that because I had a Valcyclovir script, I was ineligible for an insurance plan. “You slut! You had sex!” Oh, I had such dreams of burning it all down.
Our family, (and yours too, I’m sure) put off dozens of medical necessities that’ve later came back to haunt us. Preventative care and early interventions were routinely postponed. We’ve lost years of our functional capacity.
This is all the more absurd, because the last couple decades, we’ve had a middle class income, the kind of thing that used to be considered “safety” in my parents’ time.
To be honest, I’ve heard millionaires complain about their poor healthcare. There is NO ONE left to defend American healthcare capitalism except the owners of the medical industrial complex — and I’m sorry, they are not a quorum. No one should be sitting around planning their “go-fund-me” for their inevitable cancer treatment. And don’t get me started on Medicaid!
Okay, rant paused.
Back to my celebratory air!
My story today is illustrated by a photo from the year the ACA Act passed, and we got my baby an appointment for his hip replacement! It was such a jolly day, and I surprised Jon in a naughty nurse get-up that you, too, can delight the family with.
We were so happy. Jon’s hip feels great, by the way, and he will happily show you all the pretzel-yoga poses he can assume.
(BTW, I am not a nurse, or even a very competent sheet-changer. But I sure do love the costume part).
Next up, in my Big Med Year:
I’m going to an optometrist to get my eyes examined tomorrow. My pharmacy congratulated me today and we sang a little song at the counter: “Happy Medicare to Me.” I’m signing up for free Medicare gym membership. (I gather I’m in for endless euphemisms like “Silver Sneakers”). I’m going to see an OB-GYN without worry. A Mammogram is set this month. Acupuncture, here I come!
What else should I do? —Hey, is plastic surgery included in this thing? —REHAUL, please!!
I love you all, and I think I’m going to live a little longer . . .
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Question:
Have any of you started Medicare, or seen it in action with your older friends and family? I am eager to become an instant expert, and hear your thoughts and questions.
I want your tips! I want your laffs! (I will also accept ribbing from all my friends in other countries that are dumbfounded at US barbarism).
P.S.
Thank you for the compliments on my photo. Old people love physical compliments, even if you are exaggerating. Remarks that once felt “sexist” are now hotly desired. LOL.
Note! This portrait is not me this morning. It was taken during Jon’s hip replacement period, back when I had short and colored hair. I have a lot more wrinkles than 2016 or whenever it was. Now I’m long and silver.
But as far as my figure goes— you know, it’s sort of the same, with a little less collagen!
I once wrote a story about spending time at a nudist resort and how old people look better naked than in clothes. It’s true. Clothes often aren’t made to flatter older complexions and silhouettes. We are quite beautiful with less on.
Hey, thank you for all these “been there, done that” perspectives. I love it.
Here’s my initial take on the grift and horror of the predatory “Advantage” program — *everyone* know it’s dangerous crap, anyone who reads.
*Why is it still legal?* Seriously!
The Advantage-mongers are literally preying on the illiterate, the ill, people with no media access or social support.
I am appalled at all the con artist mail I’ve gotten at my doorstep about Medicare, that wasn’t remotely legit. I mean, I’m a high-info person, I wasn’t fooled, but I was furious! I would like to protest it, on the policy level.
As everyone pointed out, there’s a lot of paperwork to sign up, a lot of “alphabet” plans. It’s appalling that there isn’t ONE PLAN that covers EVERYTHING and that it’s a shell game to torture seniors. Fuck that!
But, thank goodness, I knew I could call a (state-licensed) independent broker in my region, who did ALL the hard parts. She does not have any vested interest in the various companies, she will work with them all. She knows who is offering the best deal at the best moment, etc, it’s her GIG. She cut to the chase about the major decisions and comparisons and listening to what mattered to me.
Believe me, I know seniors who stayed up all night reading ten thousand documents with a magnifying glass, but that was not me! The pros with a fiduciary duty are a GODSEND. Next year I’ll call her again and we’ll see how things have changed.
So, the details in my case: I am signed up for Plan A, like everyone, and Plan B. I got my Plan D for drugs, and my Plan G (Medigap) which covers everything A&B don’t quite meet! LIke I said, my total costs have plummeted to comically small.
Today, I got a full eye exam — covered. My lens and frames will be — covered. My prescription was so out of date! No wonder I have eye pain.
Then I went to the gym and joined this “Silver Sneakers” thing — covered. They allow you to use their huge facility during the afternoons, which is fine with me. The sun was pouring through the windows and the barn doors. They have a “Sneaker” class twice a week I’m going to try — I need to do weight-bearing exercise, on the CHILLED PUNK GRANNY end of the scale. Maybe if I get stronger I’ll get more ambitious, but this will be a good start.
What I really want is a very shocking “silver” lame outfit to wear to the “Silver Sneaker” sessions. I had to sign a promise I would dress appropriately, but HEY what does that MEAN.
Your message reminded me that my own passage to Medicare came when I was thanking my lucky star for the passage of Obamacare and my good judgement in living in a lefty state that had managed to elect a doctor as governor and pass the Oregon Health Plan even before Democrats seized total control of the government. My body had apparently responded with extra stress to the election of Trump and I had a TIA--a sudden inability to process written English--that was thankfully very "T" indeed, but led to the discovery of Atrial Fibrillation, which then led to the discovery of coronary artery crisis spots so by the time I passed my 65th birthday I was recovering from quadruple bypass surgery. Despite my dire poverty I was, thanks to the combination of OHP and ACA, not only fully covered for all the preliminaries, but when the doctor went out to find out which of the blood thinners on offer was covered, came back a bit surprised to learn that I could indeed get the good stuff. The ACA provision bringing all the standards up to the "standard" had eliminated the second-tier status I had previously "enjoyed."
After Medicare my health prescription costs did rise from zero to nominal, but that was a small price indeed for the reassurance that I would no longer need to remain utterly poor to qualify for medical coverage.
Anyway, welcome to the club. It does sound like you've signed up for one of those Medicare Advantage Plans (as did I a few years ago) which, besides allowing healthcare providers to profiteer from looser rules than the "regular" coverage requires you to check in every year to make sure they haven't done a bait and switch and dropped all the sweet enticements they used to attract you.
Speaking of attraction, the sexy nurse photo certainly lives up to the billing. Of course you were naked the first time I saw you live (Lupin) a setting which partly explains why I also understand and heartily concur with the comment about older women looking better naked than clothed. I remember your written comment once upon a time about a delightful woman you met on a nude cruise who looked like Granny Clampett when clothed. I don't expect the decade since I last saw you at Powell's to produce and such effect next time you're in town, but our Hippie Hot Tubs and historic nude beaches are always on hand to provide the antidote.