I am writing this blog entry
today, but it really has to do with Friday of this week.
On that day, at about 5 p.m. or thereabouts, my wife will have ended her career and will be fully retired.
She has long said that she wanted to take retirement at age 65, and that will be roughly two weeks before she turns that magic number, so she is going through with her plan to perfection.
She will dovetail right into Medicare, and she can begin the rest of her life knowing that she did what she did when she wanted to do it, and she did it seamlessly.
As you know, her husband’s personal trek to retirement was a bumpy as it could be, and still is as a result of this latest retirement in our family.
My son and I got our health insurance through my wife’s plan that she got at work, and we had been using her plan since literally Day One of our marriage and second, since our son was born 26 years ago.
Even when I was working, the health plan provided by my work was horrible in comparison to what my wife’s plan offered, so I always went with her plan—and there was even a period early in our marriage where my work at the time offered no health insurance, just a stipend to cover insurance, so I have always gone under her plan.
Since her coverage ends on October 31--Halloween, naturally--my own personal horror show began many weeks ago, trying to find something to cover me until I can get Medicare, which won’t be until April 2022, since I am not 65 yet and, in fact, am few months younger than my wife.
I went through everything that was offered to me, and all the plans open to me stink in plain English, but I found a health plan, a dental plan and a vision plan that will have to suffice for the next six months—and they do cost an arm and a leg.
Our son … well, he turned 26 years of age in August, meaning that he had to find his own plan. As a developmentally disabled individual, he had been on Medicare, too, so he simply dovetailed over to Medicare in full, since his two employers—he has two part-time jobs—do not offer health insurance to people in his situation.
He had Part A of his medical plan, which gives him hospital care and pharmacy benefits. But he doesn’t have Part B, and that has to come through Social Security.
The nightmare that that caused us for the past several months cannot be put into words. I will do my best to explain.
I had to go through my wife’s Human Resources Department to obtain certain documents, and these two-hours-on-hold calls became a daily event until they got me what I wanted—under threat of getting a lawyer to sue them for this information.
Then I had to go through Social Security to finish the effort, which is like trying to navigate through thick brush, only to walk into a puddle of quicksand.
I cannot tell you how many calls I made to get this done, how many long waiting times I went through to speak to someone, anyone, and how many times I was disconnected in the middle of talking to someone.
It reached its absolute nadir yesterday, when I was talking to someone who wasn’t very nice to me at the get go and who I was disconnected from—I wonder if it was on purpose?
After calling back about four or five times without getting through and getting disconnected, I had had enough, and called the Nassau County Executive's office, explained the problem to them, and was summarily turned down for help from them.
The person I spoke to claimed that Social Security is a federal agency, and they have no jurisdiction over a federal agency even if they are doing business in Nassau County.
I told them that the current county executive's predecessor helped me in a similar situation years ago—due to the actions of his staff, I was able to get my son on Social Security—and that I did not understand why they couldn’t do the same thing for me this time.
They refused, but gave me the phone number of the local State Assemblyman, who was the next person on my call list for help, so they really didn’t help me at all, and I told them as I hung up that I will not be voting for the current County Executive in the upcoming election due to these non-actions.
I contacted the State Assemblyman's office, and I found a staff that was ready, willing and able to assist me. I had to fill out a release form, send it back to them, and they would get the ball rolling.
After I did this, I decided to call up Social Security one more time, and lo and behold, I got through to them.
I spoke to a very nice lady there, and to make a long story short, I was promised a phone call within 48 hours by the person in charge of these things to discuss my son’s plight with them.
And while waiting to pick up my son from work, I got a call from a Social Security supervisor, the same person earlier in the day who said, through an email to the nice lady that I spoke to that “they couldn’t sift through 2,000 Part B applications” to find my son’s paperwork ... who now told me that they had found his paperwork, and that he would be processed immediately, and that he would have his Part B card in a week to 10 days!
I contacted the State Assemblyman's office, thanked his staff for their help, and they told me, “If there are any further problems, please let us know,” which leads me to believe that they had a major hand in getting this done.
So now that our family’s health insurance situation appears to be taken care of—getting our son’s Part B card is still two weeks away, but I don’t believe there will be any problems with that, not now in particular—my wife can have the retirement that she has earned and deserves without any hidden problems.
In fact, the people that she works with are taking her out to dinner tonight, in a place that has an outdoor section, at my wife’s insistence, what with the virus still whirling around the population.
So on Friday, at about 5 p.m., she will begin her new life as a retired person, and as I have told her, you don’t know what is involved with that until you actually do it.
There will be a lot of changes to get used to after working for 40-plus years, and it seems easy to retire, but in actuality, it isn’t.
Take if from me, this semi-retired person who hates being in this situation I was thrust into against my will.
But maybe things will get better on my end with my wife in somewhat the same situation.
We will find out on Monday, November 1, the first day of the rest of her life.
On that day, at about 5 p.m. or thereabouts, my wife will have ended her career and will be fully retired.
She has long said that she wanted to take retirement at age 65, and that will be roughly two weeks before she turns that magic number, so she is going through with her plan to perfection.
She will dovetail right into Medicare, and she can begin the rest of her life knowing that she did what she did when she wanted to do it, and she did it seamlessly.
As you know, her husband’s personal trek to retirement was a bumpy as it could be, and still is as a result of this latest retirement in our family.
My son and I got our health insurance through my wife’s plan that she got at work, and we had been using her plan since literally Day One of our marriage and second, since our son was born 26 years ago.
Even when I was working, the health plan provided by my work was horrible in comparison to what my wife’s plan offered, so I always went with her plan—and there was even a period early in our marriage where my work at the time offered no health insurance, just a stipend to cover insurance, so I have always gone under her plan.
Since her coverage ends on October 31--Halloween, naturally--my own personal horror show began many weeks ago, trying to find something to cover me until I can get Medicare, which won’t be until April 2022, since I am not 65 yet and, in fact, am few months younger than my wife.
I went through everything that was offered to me, and all the plans open to me stink in plain English, but I found a health plan, a dental plan and a vision plan that will have to suffice for the next six months—and they do cost an arm and a leg.
Our son … well, he turned 26 years of age in August, meaning that he had to find his own plan. As a developmentally disabled individual, he had been on Medicare, too, so he simply dovetailed over to Medicare in full, since his two employers—he has two part-time jobs—do not offer health insurance to people in his situation.
He had Part A of his medical plan, which gives him hospital care and pharmacy benefits. But he doesn’t have Part B, and that has to come through Social Security.
The nightmare that that caused us for the past several months cannot be put into words. I will do my best to explain.
I had to go through my wife’s Human Resources Department to obtain certain documents, and these two-hours-on-hold calls became a daily event until they got me what I wanted—under threat of getting a lawyer to sue them for this information.
Then I had to go through Social Security to finish the effort, which is like trying to navigate through thick brush, only to walk into a puddle of quicksand.
I cannot tell you how many calls I made to get this done, how many long waiting times I went through to speak to someone, anyone, and how many times I was disconnected in the middle of talking to someone.
It reached its absolute nadir yesterday, when I was talking to someone who wasn’t very nice to me at the get go and who I was disconnected from—I wonder if it was on purpose?
After calling back about four or five times without getting through and getting disconnected, I had had enough, and called the Nassau County Executive's office, explained the problem to them, and was summarily turned down for help from them.
The person I spoke to claimed that Social Security is a federal agency, and they have no jurisdiction over a federal agency even if they are doing business in Nassau County.
I told them that the current county executive's predecessor helped me in a similar situation years ago—due to the actions of his staff, I was able to get my son on Social Security—and that I did not understand why they couldn’t do the same thing for me this time.
They refused, but gave me the phone number of the local State Assemblyman, who was the next person on my call list for help, so they really didn’t help me at all, and I told them as I hung up that I will not be voting for the current County Executive in the upcoming election due to these non-actions.
I contacted the State Assemblyman's office, and I found a staff that was ready, willing and able to assist me. I had to fill out a release form, send it back to them, and they would get the ball rolling.
After I did this, I decided to call up Social Security one more time, and lo and behold, I got through to them.
I spoke to a very nice lady there, and to make a long story short, I was promised a phone call within 48 hours by the person in charge of these things to discuss my son’s plight with them.
And while waiting to pick up my son from work, I got a call from a Social Security supervisor, the same person earlier in the day who said, through an email to the nice lady that I spoke to that “they couldn’t sift through 2,000 Part B applications” to find my son’s paperwork ... who now told me that they had found his paperwork, and that he would be processed immediately, and that he would have his Part B card in a week to 10 days!
I contacted the State Assemblyman's office, thanked his staff for their help, and they told me, “If there are any further problems, please let us know,” which leads me to believe that they had a major hand in getting this done.
So now that our family’s health insurance situation appears to be taken care of—getting our son’s Part B card is still two weeks away, but I don’t believe there will be any problems with that, not now in particular—my wife can have the retirement that she has earned and deserves without any hidden problems.
In fact, the people that she works with are taking her out to dinner tonight, in a place that has an outdoor section, at my wife’s insistence, what with the virus still whirling around the population.
So on Friday, at about 5 p.m., she will begin her new life as a retired person, and as I have told her, you don’t know what is involved with that until you actually do it.
There will be a lot of changes to get used to after working for 40-plus years, and it seems easy to retire, but in actuality, it isn’t.
Take if from me, this semi-retired person who hates being in this situation I was thrust into against my will.
But maybe things will get better on my end with my wife in somewhat the same situation.
We will find out on Monday, November 1, the first day of the rest of her life.
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