By Sandy Sanders
Today, I turned 65. In my billfold is a Medicare card for Part A and Part B. I am told that when I go to the doctor or hospital now, I should give them the card. I believe that to be a good plan because since applying three months before my birthday that is the total extent of my understanding of Medicare.
When I first started the process, I was advised to go to the Medicare Web site for information to sign up. I did but could only find that I was eligible, not where to sign up. In desperation, I called. I waited on hold until finally there was a person on the other end of the phone. Thank goodness. The customer-service lady was very professional and very helpful. Twice since then I have had to go to the local Social Security and, once you get your number called, the customer-service people have been equally helpful. My problem has not been with people but the communications from the big Medicare office.
Medicare people, I have found, talk in simple terms but no one can write simple. Here in the newspaper world, we write our stories on a seventh-grade reading level; why can’t federal people do the same? Actually, when it comes to health care insurance, it would probably be good to take it down another grade level or two.
In December, I started receiving letters that because of my MAGI (my what?), I would be charged a premium and I must pay the premium three months in advance. On the Medicare Web site, I found “The Social Security Administration will add your adjusted gross income together with your tax-exempt interest income to get an amount called the modified adjusted gross income (MAGI).” In reading my letters, I am convinced that no one other than the FEDS knows about my MAGI because if my employer did I would have a much bigger check every two weeks.
Our Congress is just before passing on to us a magical health care plan to serve all of our needs. If I cannot understand Plan A and B for Medicare, what will I do once Nancy Pelosi and the boys get through with helping us with an all new health program?
If you really want to help me then fire all of the people who write all the Web sites, guides and letters and give their jobs to your customer-service people. They obviously understand you better than we do and I know they understand us (because I have talked with them). Better yet, assign us all a neighborhood customer-service person. You surely have enough stimulus money to pay them.
While writing this column, I got this e-mail of a letter a man wrote while trying to renew his passport. This is just a portion of his letter (some I cannot reprint) but you can see that he and I (and most people I know) share the same frustration.
“Dear Sirs, I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and that I bought a cable television in 1987, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. Do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my Social Security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver’s license, on the last eight passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times. You send the application to my house, and then you ask me for my address. Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is Maryanne, my father’s name is Robert and I’d be absolutely astounded if they ever changed between now and when I die! I apologize; I’m really ------ off this morning. Between you and me, I’ve had enough ...
