Still Here...
Thu., May 18, 10:13 AM
Sorry to complain about my eyes again, but when reading has become as automatic as breathing, the frustration over not being able to focus is unbelievable. I’ve put extra pairs of glasses all over the house – by the bed, on the kitchen table, in the basement, and even in the bathroom. (Is that hair spray or some other hair product? How much of this soap do you use?) The simple solution – wearing my glasses on a cord around my neck – turns out to be a bad idea because it irritates my skin. Despite the hypoallergenic chain.
My telephone has a caller ID in its window, but it’s so small that I prefer the half-inch one I bought from the phone company years ago.
Anyhow, I’m still working at it. It’s even funny sometimes. And somebody heard me.
But this was a good morning. For starters, no rain. It was warm enough to go outside for the newspaper wearing just a sweater. And then there was something in the letters to the editor:
As one who signed up for the Medicare D Prescription Plan last December, I believe I add something to this discussion. Signing up was very confusing, and I don’t know how anyone without some previous experience was able to do it. The Government sources were no help whatsoever, and many of the insurance companies offering help were trying to sell supplemental insurance that we didn’t need.
It’s too bad that it took the Social Security Administration six months to get their act together, but – with apologies to Representative Nancy Johnson – it was not the Democrats who made it confusing. The initial forms sent out by the government were not only confusing, but scary. They wanted all kinds of financial information; one might have thought the IRS was checking on us.
The Medicare information web page was not ready when promised. Phone lines were jammed, and the people answering phones had not been thoroughly instructed either. I needed to correct an error in a name, and the operator not only didn’t know how to do it, she didn’t know how to transfer a call!
I have heard people who are just learning what I figured out last November: you must begin with a formulary. That is a list of which prescription drugs are covered by that company. How many insurance companies offered these? I received them from two different companies, out of all those who advertised.
The saddest part of this chaos is that the program works. Once you get signed up, your pharmacy fills the prescription and does the paperwork, just as it does with any kind of insurance. Our family uses ten different prescriptions, and the saving since January is tremendous. Even though we will “cap out” before the end of the year, we will have received a grant of X number of dollars against costs of thousands of dollars a year.
My biggest fear is that not enough people will sign up, and the powers that be will decide that it wasn’t such a good idea after all. So they’ll cancel it. Once again our inept government will shoot itself in the foot.
This subject is one I have talked about before, and I originally wrote that piece just as one of my own entries, but I thought the newspaper could use it…and maybe open a few eyes. It happens that I usually have a lot of respect for that particular congresswoman, but I was totally offended by the remarks she made this week.
Still a good day. Even before I woke Husband up, I put on my new blue sandals and went to investigate the new Stop & Shop market, less than half the distance to the one I’ve been using. A beautiful market, with loads of organic produce and expanded fresh food selections. I walked the market – got my exercise for today – and was home less than an hour after I left. Even if I spend a little more on groceries – because they have more upscale items – I will save it in gasoline.
Would you like to consider a way of easing the burden of gas prices? Instead of taking all the profits, oil companies could return some of it to the consumers. They could write off most of the loss for a tax credit and, in the process, buy a lot of goodwill for their companies.
Why won’t it work? The companies will cite the stockholders, who would rather rake in all they can before the petroleum runs out. Furthermore, the government would never accept the possibility of collecting less tax money from companies that are making so much profit.
Greed, greed, greed. Isn’t that one of the seven deadly sins?
