Do you mean to tell me that is all there is to signing up for Medicare? I’ll take Classic, please.

Thanks, ads that interrupt my shows, thick brochures mixed in with my bills, barely overheard horror stories about the service. Even thinking about Medicare made me emotionally dance around the fringes of Medicare. I can see 65 from here, and I was powerfully procrastinating reading the materials. I was dreading having to sort through the options. Between daily finance issues, Social Security changes, and what sounded like a mandatory Medicare process – well, I wasn’t looking forward to the paperwork associated with reaching ‘retirement’ age. I feel better, now, thank you.

Signing up isn’t that scary, I think.

Ads leverage fear. The fear of missing out, the fear of doing it wrong, the fear of making a commitment in a morass of unintelligible complexity.

Friends can swing the emotions either way. Horror stories, or at least dramas, drive conversations. Making something sound simple isn’t as entertaining as emphasizing critical moments and the teller’s excellence at evading them or surviving them.

Two friends, one on social media and one I saw in a physically social event (was it a dance?) calmed me down. They said it was super easy, barely an inconvenience. (I’m curious who will get that reference.)

I’d saved a lot of the brochures; they sat on a corner of my desk. On my computer, emails and tabs for websites were open. Rather than prepare myself, I happened to be in my office doing cleaning chores and dove in. Get it done before I over-thought it. Besides, Jim said it was easy.

Trust Jim. Jim was right – so far, and that’s good enough for me, so far.

This post will probably be long enough because I write that way (how else do you think I manage to write so much?), so I’ll spare you the details of all the sources I researched. Go to the government’s site.
https://www.medicare.gov/

OK. Maybe not. The website is slow enough that my browser bonked on it. In classic form, they talk about and around it in so many ways trying to be helpful that it felt like they were purposely trying to find something. But they have to cover everything for everyone in every situation. Great, they cover it, but then they bury it.

Let’s try, again.
https://www.medicare.gov/publications/10050-Medicare-and-You.pdf
Page 10, maybe page 11, too. Your Medicare options. My options? Yes, my options, evidently.
On one page they mention Parts A, B, then D, and go back to describe C, and add two more choices. This is already simpler. I looked at the heading, and it simplified further into two choices: Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. I show my age by getting a flashback to Classic Coke and whatever else was around. I read over Original, and thought it seemed fine for me. I double-checked with friends, a doctor, and an insurance agent. They agreed. It took longer to check that it really was as simple as choosing Classic than it did to sort through the ads and brochures. Your results may differ.

It turns out that most of the obfuscation comes from so many voices trying to clarify, and clarify, and clarify the system that the system seems like it must be incredibly complex. The government’s handout (or download) is 128 pages long. I needed one page, maybe two. The companies are trying to entice me into being their provider. The government is trying to please everyone by covering every possibility, most of which won’t apply to me.

I’m not surprised. The government gets massively criticized if anything they do can be misconstrued. Too many imperfect people (and we are all imperfect) expect perfection from the people who are trying to help. That’s true in health care, public policy, protective services, everyone and everything everywhere.

The corporations know how profitable the healthcare insurance industry can be. The government is charged over a thousand dollars a month for my subsidized health insurance. Give me a thousand dollars a month to spend on health care and I may not need the health insurance. Of course they want my business, and that’s more important.

We humans are so good at complicating things.

I may have over-simplified things.

I had a similar reaction to signing up for Obamacare. That chronicle is one of my most popular posts. I suspect something similar to happen here. The prelude is wrapped in a confusion of opinions and claims. Actually, signing up eventually becomes easy, especially in retrospect. Expect a few imperfections. When the benefits become available, the imperfections become real and manageable. Using the benefits is when the greatest confusion can happen because reality is messy and no system is perfect – and because everyone is different, including me. Histories matter, especially after living for a few decades.

I haven’t had to sign up yet. So far, it is simple but theoretical.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll meet with a local insurance broker whom I know and trust.

Early next year, I’ll turn 65 and the coverage should begin.

Soon after that, I’ll ask my doctor to help investigate various issues and treatments.

I have a plan, which is calming.

I also have a real life going on at the same time. I’m busy. I have to keep things simple. Time has always been more precious than money, and its value increases as my time available decreases.

And,

Within the next few months, I might have to sell my house and move. That’s another story. I only bring it up because turning 65 will have other implications. There will be lots of bureaucracy. I don’t want to have changes of address mixing up the various signups. They allude to that. I’ll deal with that separately. If I move, it will probably be to a place where the list of providers of anything is only one line long. Limited, but simple.

And, if I get it wrong, I can change it in a year. All of this noise and effort and it can be redone? Sweet.

I consider it ironic, or maybe just sad, that it became unhealthy to listen to health insurers, health care companies, drug companies, care facilities, and also people bashing the government. My screen’s Mute button gets hit a lot. That day when I finally dove into the paperwork included a step I didn’t mention above. When I have to deal with health insurance, I tend to take my anti-anxiety medicine first. The health system that is supposed to make us all healthier is so convoluted and confusing that I find it unhealthy. Glad I have something somewhere covering that. Tracking that down is too complicated.