I live in an attic, still, and I, my metabolism and I, tend to run hot, but shit, if you count the windchill, it’s been in single digits. Single digit. Single digit below zero degrees farenheit. Maybe it’s because you all are getting older, but it’s fucking cold up here.
A few days ago I tripped up the stairs and among other humiliating things (like opening the scab from slipping on the ice a week or so earlier) I launched a hot mug of ginger tea and my phone. Not only have I put on a brave face about it, but I signed up for a gym yesterday, a gym I fully intend on using and not because of New years but because I meant to do it months ago; GF and I have been waiting for one another and I insisted we just Do It. On Monday. We just did it on Friday, but, you know, cool. Will probably start Monday. Wait, where was I going?
Oh, yeah. Nothing broke in the upward fall, but things did get soaked with ginger tea. The mug flew straight at the thin curtain in front of the thin window. I keep checking the window because it’s fucking cold up here. Window appears fine, so, it’s just you getting old and your joints are stiff in high humidity or low temps. You should really have that looked at.
Speaking of clusterduck health care, my little monthly song and dance was a lot more complicated yesterday than it needed to be. And fucking cold. First off they pulled that treating me like a criminal thing and wouldn’t give me my prescription until I took a UA (piss test). I agreed to such things with original contract because of the meds I’m on. It was explained as that it was for checking that I was actually taking what I was prescribed. Although I might have calmly explained it would take a really stupid criminal to spend as much as I do on insurance, then doctor visits then the medications for so few drugs to sell that I’d be operating at a loss every month. Not to mention causing myself real injuries to get my operating-at-a-loss business. I didn’t explain it’d be cheaper to buy and sell through drug dealers than doctors. But still, I’m ok with the arraingement especially since up until yesterday they’ve only exercised the option once.
The extortion part, surprise withholding of my prescription until I take the criminal test, not cool. You don’t tell a criminal ahead of time when the UA is because you want to catch him. A patient, I believe, you want to have a professional and therapeutic relationship with. The last time they did that I shamed them to the point of apology. It’s damn hard to get a doctor to apologize. Also, they tested for everything under the sun, again, apologizing, but more about the cost and then stating that’s the only way they are allowed to order the test. That sounds like bullshit, sounds like a cheating spouse where you have to decide whether the act or the lying about it was most offensive. People usually go with the lying, but, the act sucks too. I mean, in real life, I think I’d prefer my doctor was lying than the institutional policy was to charge four hundred bucks on a comprehensive test when looking for two substances, a thirty dollar test. It doesn’t matter how much the insurance pays, it’s unethical at best; at worst they are trying to catch me as a stoner or drug dealer. I don’t know what the state law is, but no federal prosecutor would touch that case based solely on the measly volume, that and I never have more than are legally prescribed. Why? Because I am a patient being treated for chronic pain and the doctors haven’t come up with a more creative way of treatment. If I were also doing a bunch of recreational drugs they’d have to be a lot smarter to catch me. Since I’m not it’s insulting.
You’d also like to think with all that education they’d be able to tell if someone was stoned. Hell I dropped out of high school and can tell when someone is stoned. So, to add injury to insult, I had to insist to the surly front desk, to be fair they aren’t usually surly but they got new software in novemeber and still can’t figure it out, to enter my new insurance info. I said the Affordable Care Act has meant new insurance every January even with the same provider.
So I get to the pharmacy and their computer system, which works fine and they all understand, says they can’t fill it without pre-approval from doctor. Several steps later and being told over and over again I need pre-approval and it takes 72 hours, the drop out comes up with an idea. I had a nurse call the pharmacy and say I was approved to pay by cash.
Oh, back up, at first everyone was blaming the insurance company. In general I think insurance companies are the root of all evil, it’s like going to a casino where the biggest jackpot is if you break your leg you might break even assuming the casino doesn’t suggest it happened in a manner not covered.
So I made some mild comment about the affordable care act and the lady at the pharmacy politely but adamantly insisted that Obama was not to blame. Brief tangent; Trump supporters, and those who decided they were once he took the election, continue to demonize Obama and Clinton. I understand why she might have been a bit defensive. I said I didn’t blame the man, but the system was a clusterfuck and 72 hours meant a really bad weekend for me. I told her until I came back Michigan I just paid healthcare out of pocket, I could not get a doctor here without insurance. She said she hasn’t been able to for two years and when I asked about the pharmacy providing her insurance she said not at a price she could afford. Yeah, that’s not obamacares fault, that’s the pharmacies. I was surprised how candid she was.
I think the nurse didn’t really expect her telling the pharmacy that the doctor was ok with me paying by cash was going to work. She also said it’s going to cost like 300 bucks. Huh. Maybe that’s why they think I’m a drug dealer. It costs just shy of seventy. Street value, 3 hundred perhaps, if you sold them one at a time. Maybe my nurses and doctors buy their drugs from street vendors. At any rate it worked, the no insurance lady was pretty fucking A impressed by me. I’ve got twenty bucks for anybody willing to bet me that she’s the only one who will offer that solution to customers. I’m thinking both the institutions will go through the whole pre-approval thing with 72 hours, business hours too, I assume.
Had I really been desperate I might have been less coherent. I always assume there’s going to be some kind of fuck up and squirrel away a few of my meds just in case. It makes for some few uncomfortable hours during the month, but beats the hell out 72 uncomfortable hours in a row. Mostly there was a principle at stake. First they presume I’m a criminal and actively withhold medication until I comply with invasive and expensive test, then they are all unconcerned and red tape-y about me getting the medication that, according to the Big Lie, they were testing for. I’m not a hundred percent sure that they had never thought of the idea I asked for, it’s simple and obvious, I am a hundred percent sure they didn’t offer it to me until I suggested it. Even if it were three hundred bucks, give the patient a viable option for shits sweet sake.
Oh, and to bring it all back around, I had to do all this with minus two degrees windchill and lost a glove somewhere along the way. Adding insult to injury and then exacerbating insult and injury and in the fucking cold. Yes, the offices are indoors and yes my car has a heater, but I still spent more time walking in the bitter cold than I would have if there wasn’t a clusterfuck of insurance, apathy, and MD’s acting like PO’s (medical doctors acting like parole officers). I should have written down my shame speech, because I’m seeing them face to face come February and planning on giving them capture and verse, a real come to Jesus meeting for unrepentant sinners.
Um, my pee is fine, goes well with poultry or fish. You want to serve my blood with beef and lamb. Come to Jesus. Heh, I forget how that phrase came to mean what it does, though it makes sense. When your fucking flock has strayed you remind them where they live, read them the riot act, get up in their grill, make it damn clear to the lost lambs what souvlaki and gyro’s are made of not to mention rack of …
Whew. I think I intended to write something else. Oh, I remember, I was decluttering the attic and was stiff and cold and took a break. Typing makes one feel productive, well, this one. This one thinks his health care is inhumane, and whereas that’s not Obamas fault, he sure didn’t help. I expect even less from Trump, but who the fuck knows, he’s never held the office, doesn’t have a track record, and was not elected pharaoh/god for life, just POTUS.
When not carrying on about how shitty Obama and Clinton are, the rapid deskchair Trump supporters keep talking about how the republicans are going to fix things. Our memory is that short? The republicans are even more afraid of Trump than the democrats. With the exception of tea bagging senators and congressmen, I don’t think the white house and the other two houses think they belong to the same party, and the first really rash thing he does in office I’m sure the GOP will denounce him, hell they tried hard to keep him from running under their donkey. I’m all in favor of dismantling Obamacare but only with a real healthcare system in place. Although I suspect Trump won’t do the latter I also suspect he won’t do the former either. I honestly haven’t a clue what he really wants to do and if he will have any support from the republican majority. Trump had as little to do with pee testing and pre-approval horseshit as Obama did. I don’t go through the marketplace anyhow. Again, just principle. I believe public servents should at least pretend to serve the public. Using the same cheating spouse analogy, everyone would be much happier if the spouse didn’t get caught in the first place and occasionally showed up with flowers or a blowjob, depending on which spouse. I suppose in a gay marriage it’d be best to bring both.
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