"...buy shares, dear Reader, because their obligation is to profit, not the patient. ..."
Fine Print, Jan 15th, 2007
Happy New Year.
I've been doing everything within my power to secure another writing job. And I have powers. Once, I grew a person in my vagina.
Nothing yet.
The hospital bills keep coming. My rage culminated in 30 seconds of screaming and cellphone throwing. El Boyfriend threw himself on me, to protect the walls. My phone wouldn't break so I kept throwing it over and over again. It felt good and when all is said and done... Kyocera takes a beating and keeps on ringing.
It turns out that I will be paying thousands of dollars to doctors, hospitals and labs. Thousands! Instead of zero, which is why I was paying all that premium money.
My health insurance is called PHCS. They have five plans with various names, mine is called OpenAccess. The information on the PHCS ID card does include my plan. If a doctor takes one of PHCS's four other plans, in the minds of their office manager, they take PHCS. Even if they don't accept my plan.
And no one takes OpenAccess. Not the doctor on call the night I gave birth, not the anesthesiologist, not the hospital, not the pediatricians. By complete accident, the hospital where I had my wrist surgery does. The surgeon, however, does not.
To avoid this misunderstanding, PHCS could write, in bold letters on the ID card, "Plan: Open Access." This would trigger the watchful eye of a medical receptionist.
"Hmmm. That doesn't sound familiar," she'd say. "Let me doublecheck."
And she'd return, frowning.
"You know what, I've never even heard of OpenAccess. Sorry, we don't take it."
And then I'd have three to four thousand more dollars in the bank.
But PHCS doesn't do that, and probably on purpose. The responses from their customer service department are slick and bulletproof. They do this everyday. It's a great way to avoid paying claims. Buy shares, dear Reader, because their obligation is to profit, not the patient.
It's all explained in fine print, if you're interested.
Over the holidays, it was weeks of grandmothers, grandfathers, airplanes, cousins, baby brothers, big brothers, aunts and uncles. Kilbaby slept through EVERY flight.
We haven't circumcised him yet. I'm against it, because it's genital mutilation, but I'm being overruled by El B and a recent study that says circumcision greatly reduces the instances of HIV. Sorry, son! Mother wanted you to be uncut!
My baby doesn't annoy me as much as I thought he would. In fact, he doesn't annoy me at all! When I'm out, I can't wait to get home so I can drop him in the sling and carry him around like a little possum. Actually, the only thing that annoys me is the rest of the world and everyone in it.
