Healthcare Freedom

I want socialized healthcare and I want it NOW!

Work covers prescription safety glasses for me every two years. In two years time even well cared for safety glasses get really messed up working in a factory. Two years has passed, it is time for new glasses.

For the glasses themselves, the company has a contract with an independent clinic with top notch service. If I purchase my safety glasses there, they will bill my employer directly. My other option is to buy them elsewhere with my own money and submit my bill for reimbursement by my employer.

I called up the clinic to see if they will accept the new insurance since the company changed our coverage when they were bought out. Nope, I'm not covered there. So I have to get my eye appointment at an approved clinic and then take my prescription to this other clinic to get my safety glasses.

To find out what clinics I can go to I had activate my online account. Yeah, I'm a real health conscious guy. I've been insured since January and am just getting around to using my benefits for the first time. Going through that process was somewhat frightening. To set up my password the automated system asked me a series of questions that supposedly only I would know the answer to. How does an automated system for my insurance company on a plan I have never used know what vehicle I owned seven years ago and who one of my roommates was thirteen years ago? I know the answer and I don't like it.

After several minutes of creepiness I get into their system, look up local providers, and discover I can choose between one place on the other side of town or fucking off. My glasses are pretty screwed up right now, so I choose not to fuck off but to give them a call.

When I called my old clinic, the phone was answered by a receptionist. This place gave me an automated answering system that informed me in a very rushed manner that if I wanted to make an eye appointment the number I really wanted to call was... hang up, call again, paper and pen ready... one more time. Got it.

I call the appointment number and get another automated system. In this system I wait on hold long enough to finish making my lunch and writing most of this blog post. I finally get to talk to a person, go to set up an appointment, and I go off.

"You are fucking kidding me. A month? The earliest appointment you have is a fucking month away? I once had to wait two fucking days and the clinic apologized and you are telling me I can't get in for a fucking month and pretending that it is no big deal?" It doesn't exactly fit with my personal schedule, either. But I take it. I have to. I have no choice but to give them my money and take it right up the ass because right now the alternative is to not be able to see at all. Which might not be so bad.

To all you assholes out there yelling and screaming about how bad it would be to have socialized healthcare, I know of something far worse. It's called Kaiser*.

* A friend who used to work in a morgue told me that Kaiser is very good at caring for the deceased. He saw many of their clients.