(Gotta chronicle this now because there are so many details that my memory won’t hold them for long. It may not even want to. If I Had More Time I Could Have Made It Shorter. #IIHMTICHMIS)

Aargh!!! Sign up for Medicare! It’s easy. I’m worried. It sounds like a lot of folks get very confused. OK. I’ll try. Hey, look. It looks easy. Whew. I have some questions first. – Initial questions get reasonable answers; but the questions after those, and after those return contradictions and complexities. Help!

I got help.

It seemed simple. Sign up for Medicare. Transition out of Washington State’s Healthplan Finder system. Turn 65. Done.

But Social Security gets involved. OK. Keep that in mind.

Washington State’s system has deadlines. So does Medicare. None coincide with my birthday, but that’s not a surprise, merely a complexity.

It’s also the time for the normal signup period for my normal healthcare benefits.

Who is in charge?

As if there weren’t enough variables, there’s also the possibility that I’ll be selling my house and moving to another county. (Move From Whidbey Over 1700)

Which comes first?

Throughout, emails and mail packages arrive, many of which are from other insurance companies trying to wedge in here. What’s with that? I’m on Whidbey Island, where the choice is one line long, Kaiser Permanente. (Subsequently proved wrong, but hey, I’m human.)

After tossing out almost all of the solicitations, I am left with over an inch of brochures and information packets. There are more words here than I put in a book. It’s so easy, they claim. Then why so many words? The most ironic to my perspective is “Medicare & You, The official U.S. government Medicare handbook.” A handbook. It’s 8.5 inches wide by 11 inches tall, which is an impressively large hand, and 130 pages long which is thicker than many books. Handbook? Did it start life as small, simple, and convenient, or was it always overwhelmingly large? As a writer, I read a lot. The volume of volumes delivered are more likely to befuddle and confuse than to educate and illustrate.

In the midst of all of that, Kaiser sent me Plan Information, which I ignored for later – and found that it didn’t contain Plan Information, but did include a bill – which became late. A much larger and more innocuous package wasn’t labeled, but it was Plan Information. Oy!

Even now, I’m starting to lose track of who I called first, then next, and when.

I decided to go straight to the ultimate source: my local hospital. I found a person. Yay! I asked them what would happen if for some reason I didn’t sign up right, as in late or filling out the wrong firm, but was admitted in an emergency. Would I be treated? Yes. And most likely, 80% of my expenses would be covered. So, all of this consternation is over who pays the other 20%.

Kaiser said the opposite. If I didn’t sign up for Plan C or D, I wouldn’t have any coverage. Washington Healthplan Finder said yes or no, as I recall, and as I asked more than once.

I feel sorry for anyone in the midst of a medical situation who also has to navigate this, too.

I am also glad that I was directed to a broker who has helped as my befuddled mind capitulates.

Now, pardon me as I approach a deadline and am about to embark on a call with my guide. Let’s see if the solution I am guessing at will succeed.

12 minutes later

Pardon me as I bow to Naomi at J. Johnson Insurance for putting up with the convoluted, messy bit of overthink that had become my brain. We found a solution. Also, pardon me as I open a beer.

OK. Guinness deployed.

Note that I wrote that we found a solution. A solution. A, one, any solution clears the hurdles of getting signed up for something, anything. Naomi has the skills to find an optimum solution, but I added in the extra constraint of relieving my anxiety about the whole mess. Maybe next year I’ll switch from ‘a solution’ to ‘the solution’, or at least something more optimal.

All of this to basically sign up for the Medicare version of what I already have, or at least use.

I make a clear distinction between health care and health insurance. Doctors, nurses, specialists, and other professionals provide care, or at least try to. (I can be quirky in which advice I enact.) Insurance companies are corporations. Ideally, they manage health care costs and payments, but Kaiser has misplaced premium payments and mislabeled bills to the point that I’ve lost confidence in their money management skills. Naomi could find other solutions, but my mental resources have been drained in this endeavour. My brain glazed over as she pointed out some options. She picked up on that. Very astute.

Throughout, the one thing everyone agreed on was that all of this can be changed. It may take a year at most, but it can all be changed.

All of this effort and confusion over who pays for the last 20% for the next twelve months or so. How much waste is created by the millions of people who tackle this mess?

As I understand it, and I won’t be surprised to get at least part of this wrong, Medicare is broken (tempted to leave that line there, but I don’t know it is broken, just signing up is messy) into Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D. I’ll have Part A and Part B, almost as a default. I’m also signing up for Kaiser Permanente Medicare Advantage Key (HMO), which is a name which must mean something, but tells me nothing. For some reason, the rep at Kaiser left me with the impression that without it, I wouldn’t be covered (by them?) for Parts A and B. Whatever they call it, I think this covers me with Medicare, Kaiser, and concludes my coverage through Washington Healthplan Finder. I think.

Whew.

Everything above this sentence is health insurance, which ideally is connected to health care.

I give credit to my naturopath, who I’ve relied on for health care for several years. (Waters Edge Wellness Center)

For a monthly fee of ~$150, I get more frequent visits, visits that last much longer than 10 minutes, someone who listens and hears from me often enough to know some of the deeper levels beneath some of my issues, and an environment that is relaxed and professional.

The last time I went to a conventional clinic, I fell into an anxiety attack which largely went ignored for an agonizing length of time, and met with a stranger who replaced the one doctor I was familiar with. I never returned. The state’s monthly subsidy to that conventional system is over $1,000 each month.

Imagine the healthcare I’d access if I spent $1,000 per month. Preventative care, for sure. Counseling, naturally. Massage, which my body could benefit from as typing is tightening too many muscles. Maybe even saving up against emergencies.

It is a weird system. I suspect politics, good intentions, inefficiencies in complexities, and more have detoured an ideally very good system into a health system that is expensive relative to the rest of the world. I hold hope that we may learn to learn by others’ examples. Until then, I’m glad I have Naomi and my naturopath on my side. Now, to the rest of that beer – and maybe some stretching.