Thursday, December 13, 2018

MAYBE I’M TOO CLOSE TO THE NET?


I am trying to update my Medicare situation. Trying to deal with Medicare and the Social Security system is not easy, it is confounding, inarticulate, frustrating, tiresome, and downright bothersome. The steps they lead up to bringing you back and making you want to pull your hair out, and in my case, that would be very frustrating.

Visiting the Internet to find out all I could about a broker that was advertised on the website for people who need help about their Medicare coverage, they promised they would lead me to the Promised Land. Instead, I was led down the path of suicide. I have Part A but need the prescription coverage piece to round out how I will be robbed each month from the drug companies.

They provide a phone number and I call it, someone answers and says they will take me through it by putting me in touch with an unbiased and unpaid consultant, and the whole process will cost me nothing. I speak with my savior and he asks if I have Part B. I tell him no and he informs me that he can’t lead me so well since I need part B first. Being curious and short on time (I really don’t know what the actuary charts reveal about someone my age but it can’t be all that good) how do I get it???

Call this number and get back to me the agent says. I call and am told the waiting time is Tuesday of 2022. Once again, (what the actuary charts reveal about someone my age can’t be all that good) I get tired of waiting. After waiting so long I had to trim my toenails again, I give up.

I try the process again of speaking with an agent who once again tells me the same thing and answers my question about where else I might go. He suggests another website, a rather scary and daunting one titled: socialsecurity/retirement.gov. It is here that I begin to wonder if suicide might not be such a bad idea. The trouble you can’t get started because it is so badly designed that you don’t know where to go to get help and I have to make dinner and it will cause me to rush it. I give up the quest and call it a day: tomorrow’s another day.

Tomorrow comes in spite of all my hopes and dreams and I take up the quest once again. I call the number that had me waiting and this time someone answers, telling I have to go on the Social Security website. OK, I’ll bite and maybe get a little luckier this time in terms of information. Sure enough, the same frustrations are accruing and so get in touch with them via email. I’m still waiting.

I have been bounced around like I’m the tennis ball at a tennis match between Medicare and Social Security.


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