First, June, my brother David died. June was kind of a rough month.
Then, July…as I pulled into the Aldi parking lot on July 1st I got a call from one of my doctor’s offices, saying they’d called my insurance to get approval for an MRI later in July. The insurance company told them that our insurance had been terminated. WTF?! Surely, an error.
I called the insurance company, they said that had to talk to the policy holder, which was Kevin. I called and told him and went about my shopping, hoping that things would be fixed up by the time I got home.
But no. Kevin had great health insurance through the State Retirement System; when he got on with the state police they guaranteed that he and his spouse/dependents would have health insurance for life.
Nope. He’d gotten a letter a couple of months before, and it was vague and full of confusing information, but then it said that if he needed to take action, he’d get another letter.
He didn’t. So, because Kevin is now on Medicare and I’m not yet, on June 30th they cancelled our policy because Kevin didn’t do something, still not clear what he was supposed to do.
This was a very OH MY GOD I HAVE TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, panicky kind of day.
Kevin contacted the State Retirement System and after a couple of days a higher-up person told him that we weren’t getting our insurance reinstated, then they said he could be re-enrolled in August, but I’d have to wait til next July.
HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN???
Kevin then e-mailed one of our local State Representatives, whose chief of staff contacted him to say that they were going to reach out to CMS, the Central Management System (?) because many state retirees were having the same problem.
After a while they contacted Kevin again, and the State Rep he’d reached out to, his chief of staff, and another State Rep were all going to meet with CMS because now there were over a thousand state retirees in the same boat. That’s a whole lot of people, so obviously Kevin wasn’t negligent, because what were the odds that over a thousand other retirees were likewise not paying attention?
That meeting was scheduled for Tuesday.
Yesterday, Wednesday, the chief of staff reached out to Kevin by actually calling him on the phone, the old fashioned way, and said there was nothing they could do. WTF yet again.
All month Mom and Amy kept saying, “It’ll all be OK, you’ll get your insurance back.” I was dubious and had only a shred of hope, and yesterday that came true.
No health insurance.
When this all started I started looking into the Affordable Care Act insurance and there aren’t great options. So, now I’m trying to remain calm and figure things out and get some kind of insurance by August 1st.
This month I’ve had this underlying anxiety, worrying that I’d injure myself enough to have to go see a doctor or go to the ER or something. When I went running through the woods I knew there was a giant hole out there, now covered by tall grass, so I was mindful of the hole, found it, and didn’t fall in.
At least July is almost over and I’m still OK for now. My MRI has been re-scheduled for August and I’ve re-scheduled other doctor appointments and if I didn’t have health issues it wouldn’t be so nerve-wracking.
This too shall pass. But like I said, not a great summer so far. On a brighter note, a few pictures of June…
Lester and Riley, who always make me smile.
On June 7th I looked out to see that both Jim and Kevin were mowing the lawns using push mowers, even though they have a couple of big and fancy riding mowers.
They wanted to get the exercise, of course, but it struck me as funny, both of them mowing like mad.
It looked like they were headed straight for each other…
But no collision. Did they even acknowledge that the other was there? So funny.
And then, they were both off in their own directions, as Jim got a little bit perilously close to the shore…
A good time was had by all. Everything’s going to be OK.
Ok.
Ok.
Ok then,
Mrs. Trying to Remain Chill Hughes.