What a yo-yo ride the past fifteen hours has been, riding the waves of uncertainty as I have waded through bureaucratic gobbledygook, tech-speak, and incomplete information regarding health insurance coverage and choices. I do not understand why the health insurance industry finds it necessary and standard to obfuscate and complicate literature and information. Web sites are often difficult to navigate and, most definitely, not user-friendly. Waits of an indeterminate length to speak to a representative are "usual and customary"......that is, if you can ever get to the prompt that takes you to a human. All of this angst because the state, in its infinite wisdom, deemed carrier and coverage change is necessary.
Mind you, the state doesn't make it easy, nor obvious, to discover that an insured person has to make a change. Perhaps that is the game nature of the "dance". Make the peons work for their coverage. Keep them guessing and on their toes. Uninformed people are powerless people. Is that the way our state thinks the budget deficit can be erased......by forcing an alternative insurance plan on hapless individuals who, by default, will have to select a plan that - oh by the way, costs about two-and-one-half times the current plan you are in....and - oh by the way - your current plan has been discontinued.
The yo-yo part of this posting comes in the form of a last-minute-information-reprieve gleaned from an off-the-cuff remark made by a health-care-provider representative who encouraged me to make yet another phone call. I took his suggestion and benefited greatly, all after nearly two total hours of being "on hold".
I guess the moral of my story is to dig, dig, dig for information. After you've dug, then you must verify, verify, verify, after which it is a good idea to verify the verification. After all, a lot is riding on your discovery.
Ancora imparo
