Options
I like simplicity. I like simplicity enough that I am typically far more disturbed by too choices than by not enough choices. Ya works with what ya gots and somehow it always works out, whether the critics approve of the final work, or knot.
My mystical six five is around the corner. It is a pretty big deal in the age-related yaddah market. Age related junk mail from all the most devout young at heart crowd has been intensifying since my 50's. It increased dramatically just before my 63rd birthday. My 65th birthday has youthenizers springing from the woodwork, each more clever and comprehensive than the last. The wi-fi in our waiting rooms is the best, don't ya know?
Hubs is nearly frantic to get me properly signed up to maximize the age-related opportunities. For the most part, I just sign where he tells me too, just as he has done during my shifts on the bill desk. Perhaps the greatest strength of our partnership has been our ability to trust whichever of us is running the bill desk at the time. Whichever of us is taking a break from that stress works with the numbers we are given.
During the mind-fuck of playing executor after his father's death, I have kept my strictly personal yaddah blahs as far from that bureaucratic nightmare as possible, to the point where he barely noticed that my brother and mother died soon after his father did. They were both poor folk. Not much there to executate. The bureaucrats closed their files with ho-hum ease so that they could get back to harrassing the executor of the FIL's estate. The harrassment continues.
The hospic/executor mind fuck began shortly before my 63rd birthday. The egg-shell waltz the FIL drama interrupted consisted of the two radically different dialogs I was having over my strictly personal retirement options. 1) Dependant wife. 2) Disabled veteran. Hubs, of course, is in charge of option 1. Option 2 is, of course, a bureaucratic/political/domestic nightmare, especially when the "Dependant" would have been a draft doger if he could of. As it was, the draft ended while he was in High School, but that fact didn't slow down his conscientious objections a bit. Still doesn't. I have a different set of conscientious objections, but . . . I let the more poetic objectors win those debates. Yes dear.
It was easy enough to let those 63rd birthday deadlines get lost in the emotional drama of our 3 death year. As my 65th birthday approaches, that volcanic lava seems to have cooled enough to stand upon. I have been trying again at discussing the VA option set with Hubs. It is still a stressful eggshell waltz, but . . . No major tit-for-tat skirmishes yet. . . I am beginning to feel safe discussing ^it^ with him. Stepping small, praying big and letting God lead the dance. . .
Replies
The 65th mark can be challenging enough without involving the VA. When I lived in Kansas, I worked as a Senior Health Insurance Counselor for an ADRC helping people transitioning from 64 to 65 navigate the nightmare that has become of Medicare enrollment and helping those already on Medicare.
Even being fully trained in the insane intricacies of the Medicare system, it’s a nightmare. Politicians are constantly passing new bills that have turn the whole system into an impossible system for even CMS to make work as it should.
I hope that you can navigate it successfully my friend. The VA and Medicare have been at odds since the beginning. You will face a lot of confusing and nonsensical rules and regulations because of the two. I wish you strength and patience and most of all luck.
You are in my view both smart and wise, and I wish that the system was simple for your sake but I know better. I do believe you of all people can conquer its confusion and sort it out.
Hugs and love Arfie. And early birthday best wishes.
Yea, I felt the insurance/medical system as flawed enough to start boycotting both long before I was old enough to be called, "Young Lady" by the polite at heart. Add dings to hubby's ego for the sake of legal compliance to such warmth and wisdom? Arrest me now, "Old Ones." The prison retirement homes are looking sexier by the minute.
Alas, none of that is on my drafter-dodger-wannabe's conscientious objection list. . .
For what it's worth, I have been far more comfortable with my VA health care than my private health care. At least I get thanked for my service at the VA. Nobody ever thanks me in the "Young Lady" offices. They just youthenize me. I hate being treated like a blue hair. Can't you tell by the absence of hair dye? I like my experience. Don't take it away from me, "Old Person." Never mind. . .
I don't know or even really care which bureaucratic nightmare to tackle in this law-abiding decision. My first choice is "None of the Above," but it would be nice to be able to talk more freely with the love of my life about where my get-up-and-go has been. I ain't and never have been just a deduction on your tax return, Honey Dude, no matter how it looks from your halls of busy.
I still might go for conscientious objection to the Obamacare legislation. My draft-dodger-wannabe is squirming like a new draftee.
Good luck Arfie.
I have to admit since my husband’s retirement I can actually say I miss the military health system or at least until now. Granted we are still Tricare that will always have its points of frustration, but now that I’m part of the Mayo system it’s nearly as great as the German health care. I just watched a program on the Mayo Clinic and all of their doctors and I believe employees are on salary. That makes a huge difference in what and how you’re treated.
I don’t know if I’ll ever truly understand health care in the states for all my training with Medicare. The system only makes sense if you’re a capitalist and only care about how much you get paid for treating patients and not actually helping them get healthy. That was the hard lesson learned last year. I’m only paying to have my symptoms treated not the disease cured.
But Mayo has been a whole different experience than last year, and I feel very lucky because of it.
Still these are just the random options of the medically cynical and jaded. Pay me no mind. I’ve been through to many capitalist doctors than healers so I get opinionated on that subject.
Hugs & love
I am medically cynical and jaded enough that my last physical was 1995. At this point, I am far to cynical and jaded to have understood a single one of your up-to-date buzz words. Nope. Not gonna surf 'em neither. . . I confess I barely skimmed both your fully trained tips and your consumer skepticism.
Paying no mind, whatsoever. . . Total disregard granted.
Thanks for the luck, hugs & love.
I have been a co-worsted (spell?) consumer of Obama care for about 3 and a half years... from two different insurance co... since I was lucky enough to only need to use it for about three occasions of prescription renewal, my out of pocket premiums were costly enough to earn me a free so far year this year. $150 a month doesn't sound like much compared to the cable bill but it sure feels better used on my choice of spending. I just hope the tax laws don't rake me over to many more coals early next year.
Just a mention of my care givers observation of my sister's experience with free Medic-aid that pays all of anything you or your doctor want (those doctors sure can't do enough for you) and the paid directly out of benefit (no choice) Medicare premiums (those doctors want to know more about how well your finances are feeling) ...Free really is better treatment ... an't that a shame
That flavor of free ain't matching my strictly personal definition of free. I sure don't feel free when those doctors can't do enough for me. They can keep their waiting room freedom. Enjoy, my over-trained servants. Go ahead and start without me.
I ain't a-spending my last years in waiting rooms, living procedure to procedure, script to script. Life's too short for such freedom.