You're thinking, "Hey! That Mama Blah Blah hasn't blogged in a while. She must be up to something! Hijinks! Shenanigans! Something crazy!"
What is the matter with you?
Fight the Power, Bop the Man
Dude! What is it about The Man? Why he always tryin' to keep me down? Witness:
We lost the Best Health Insurance Ever when Sweet Willie changed jobs a year-and-a-half ago. In fact, the health insurance was so great that they Cobra'd us without charge for an additional year, meaning we didn't have to pay any health insurance premiums at all for all of 2004. So , okay, we led a pretty charmed life, with one insurance card that covered health, dental, vision, and prescription plans. No co-pays. I'm serious, we did not pay a dime for any expenses incurred relating to my pregnancy and delivery of Viva (and believe me, they would have been hefty, what with my ER visits, extra ultrasounds, and all that other stuff).
It was sweet. Now we are in the muck with everyone else. I can't figure out for the life of me how we are supposed to manage all this crap. I finally figured out the dental stuff and now I am actually trying to fill a prescription from my groinocologist (props to Archie Bunker for that fabulous phrase). I've changed birth control methods, if you must know. So I took the prescription to Sav-On Drugs yesterday and the pharmacist on duty was baffled by my insurance card.
"I don't know what to do with this," she said. "It doesn't say anything on here about your co-pay."
"Hmm," I said, brightly. "Well, let me call them and find out what is going on." And then Viva and I went merrily on our way. Well, perhaps not merrily, since we are both hacking and wheezing to beat the band, but that's another story. It involves phlegm, and I don't want to revisit that at this time.
I called Sweet Willie at work to get to the bottom of this. Now, we did receive a packet of information about all our health insurance options, and I read it and filled everything out and gave stuff back to SW to hand it to Human Resources and I thought at one point we had all that stuff on the no-man's land that is our dresser. And yet, it is nowhere to be found. I didn't file it anywhere (which, if you know me, is very odd indeed, because I am completely insane about clutter). So we are flying blind with a lot of this, and for some reason, the Human Resources person won't give SW another packet.
I have to say, I really think this Human Resources person must be some kind of sadist, because now every time we have a question, SW has to go in and ask about it, which must be kind of annoying for the HR person, unless the HR person has some huge crush on my husband, in which case this might all make some sort of sense. But regardless, I don't want the HR person where my husband works to think that he (or I, or both of us) is (are) an idiot(s). Because we actually are both reasonably intelligent people, even though we both graduated from small liberal arts colleges. And Sweet W even has a law degree. They don't just hand those out to anyone.
So I called him at work to figure all this out, and he sighed and said he would talk to HR. And then he called me later and gave me the 911. And get this: our health insurance and our drug prescriptions are two totally separate entities, handled by two totally separate companies. This is a first for me. So Sweet W said all I need is the name of the company and his Social Security number (which I won't post here, even though I trust you all implicitly).
I called the pharmacy back and gave them this information, and the pharmacist said, "What's the group number?" I started to laugh, and so did she, and I said, "You know I don't know that, right?" And she said, "Don't you have the card?" And I said, "No, because that would be too easy." And then I said, "Okay, you know I have to call my husband again and call you back," and she said fine and I hung up and stuck a fork in my eye.
On to Day Two of this ridiculous saga! Sweet Willie goes to work, gets me the group number, calls and leaves it on the voicemail, and then calls me a little while later to tell me the group number he gave me is wrong, so he's bringing the information home with him. In the meantime, the pharmacist has called and left me a message saying they can't fill my precription until I call her back with more info. So I eventually call back (by the way, Viva and I are both sick, so I am not quite on top of things) and the pharmacist on call says she can't find my prescription, but she'll ask the other pharmacist when she gets back from lunch (this is at 3 o'clock, by the way).
Meanwhile, I go online to get duplicate prescription cards mailed to us, as advised by the HR person where Sweet Willie works. And here, my friends, is where I gave up. Let me just cut and paste here what I sent to Sweet Willie via e-mail:
That Website is the most useless piece of crap I have ever come across. At every stage it asks for your member # (which is supposedly your Soc Sec #),and then it tells me that they can't process it with that #. So I look on the site for a phone # to call and it tells me I can't get the specific customer service # for my area without my member #. I found an automated 1-800 # to call and the first thing it asks is for my member #. My head is about to explode from the sheer idiocy of it all. Even the section of the site where I can request membership cards (so I can find out what my member # is)asks me for my damn member #!!!!!
This is totally ridic.
P.S. I sent them a scathing e-mail telling them how horrible their site was and that they need to send me my damn member #. They sent me a lovely e-mail back saying I can expect a reply within 24 hours. I'm glad I didn't just have surgery or something which would require scads of pain medication. I would probably be eating my own head by now.
I think the healthcare system in this country could stand improvement. It's just a birth control prescription. Jesus!
Gratuitous Viva Conversations, or Much Ado about Cuteness
Viva (muttering sleepily): Something something pee pee and poo poo.
Mama Blah: Did you already go, or you need to go?
Viva: Yup.
The Downside to Being a "Stay-at-Home" Mom, or a Simple Equation
Eating three meals a day at home = doing dishes/cleaning up the kitchen three times a day. This is no good. No good, I say!
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