Con Man
For your daily chuckle:
Upon returning home from delivering further-requested documents for Medicaid, I found 5 letters from the government - informing me I'd been accepted for Medicaid (umm, that was fast?! or, rather, then why did they need those other documents? anyway, doesn't matter, I got what I wanted).
So, yes, 5 letters. 3 were unsealed. One of them, I kid you not, has already expired. Turns out I was covered for November. Gee, thanks.
Finally, my favorite. Medicaid requires that I belong to an 'MCP' or managed care plan - whatever, it means that basically they are outsourcing me to a health insurance provider. So, I have to choose one. They give me a web site to go to in order to check out my options. The web site ends, again I kid you not, in "con-man-care.stm".
Comments
Hey Mara! Welcome back to the USA. Nafis and I have moved to Atlanta and after what has been a long whirlwind of events I am starting to get back to my normal routine, which includes catching up with friends' blogs. I just spent some time reading yours, laughing and crying at the same time. I am not sure exactly why I wanted to share that, but I did. Congrats on the baby-to-be! And tell your mom she's my hero. I still have some catching up to do on my blog so drop me an email when you have the time. It's nice to have you in back on this side of the world :). --Shirin
Posted by: Shirin Zeb | December 2, 2006 01:21 AM
And THAT, my friend, is why Medicaid is so expensive--these "administrative costs" from Medicaid foisting clients off onto other insurance providers. (We're still doing our case on Medicaid as you can probably tell. In fact, I should be writing a paper on single payer health care systems right now!) Incidentally, a lot of states have moved toward this managed care model because it is believed to be cost-saving. But in truth, a lot of money just evaporates into inefficient spending on medical administration (case in point, being farmed out to an insurance provider). In our country, medical administration and technology is where a good portion of our health dollar goes. However, the good thing about managed care is that you at least know where you can go for health care and who will take you as a patient. Administrators love the managed care model. Good luck Mara. If you ever want to email me to complain about it, I'm all ears. I love to complain about the American health care system.
Posted by: Amelia McGee | December 2, 2006 10:20 PM
nooo noooooo, i kid YOU........ not! (a little borat reference; lame, lame i know.)
anyways, makes you miss health service from here, eh?! :-) (ha)
anyways, con-man-care.stm, what's that about!
Posted by: Tyson, Amelia | December 4, 2006 03:45 PM
hey, Mara, will you clean out as many people's blogs as you can? It's getting annoying that I've posted, recently, but get kicked to the bottom of the list for being immune to spam.
Posted by: Mendon | December 6, 2006 12:42 AM