Rant #2,743: A Pain In My Heart

Health insurance.
 
It is a bugaboo that we all have to have for ourselves and our families.
 
Not that I did not know this, but it has become a load of quicksand for me, and I am sure that I am not alone.
 
Let me explain to you what is going on with me and my health insurance, and I will cut away as much of the fat as possible.
 
My wife has announced her retirement date. Like me, she is retiring early, but she is retiring just about when she turns 65 years of age, when you can dovetail right into Medicare and get all the Part Bs and add-ons that you want.
 
Me, I was forced to retire early, and the situation that I was thrown into once again is biting me in the backside.
 
I receive my health insurance under my wife’s plan, and once she retires, that goes up in smoke.
 
I won’t turn 65 until late April 2022, and I cannot apply for Medicare before January 1, or about three months before.
 
Since my wife is retiring at the end of October, I will be insurance-less by the end of next month, so I have to get something to protect myself during the roughly six months that I am going to need health insurance before getting Medicare.
 
A few days ago, I went on the New York State of Health website, https://info.nystateofhealth.ny.gov/, which stands as one of the most confusing web sites in the history of the Internet.
 
Before doing anything, I called the number supplied by the site, spoke to an operator, told her my plight, and she said that it would take “hours” to fill out the form over the phone, and that it would be easier for me to do it online, so I followed her suggestion.
 
I filled out everything I thought I needed to fill out regarding health coverage during this period that I need it—the site insists that this is the easiest way to apply for such insurance, rather than go through an operator on the phone, so it backs up what the operator told me—and I chose a plan (which I have been told by more than one person that all the plans offered on the site are horrible, with high deductibles) which I will use as something of a "Band-Aid" until I can get Medicare.
 
Anyway, the state says that it wants you to have health insurance so badly that it will help you pay for the plan you choose, based on your income and, if you filed you taxes jointly, your spouse’s income.
 
I did all the calculations, and I put in for the insurance, but lo and behold, it rejected me for one reason or another.
 
I later found out that it rejected me because it read that I still have health insurance—which I do until the end of next month when my wife retires. I was just trying to be proactive so there would be no lapses in health insurance coverage, but the site is not intuitive enough to know this.
 
In fact, I even received an official document from New York State stating that I actually applied too early.
 
I wondered why the original operator told me that it would be easier for me to fill out the form online with my situation at hand, and I chalked it up to laziness and incompetency on her part, which I later found out to be 1,000 percent true.
 
Anyway, with time a’wastin’ I decided to try again late yesterday afternoon, so I called them up, and I was attached to an operator who walked me through the entire process, which took about an hour and a half.
 
I got a plan that begins in November, and based on the scads of money that my wife and I will be making during 2021, it will prove to be very costly to me—and I have to re-up in January, because our salary totals will change when my wife retires, as she is really going to retire, and will live on Social Security only.
 
Well, getting that done with someone who wasn’t lazy was a relief, but I will be paying so much for this health insurance that I have to change some other things in my life, such as the percent of taxes taken out of my Social Security payment each month.
 
That is another hassle, it has to be done on a form that you can only send to your local office through the mail, and I found out it can take two or three months to be changed, so I am really screwed here.
 
And then I got to thinking … would it be more prudent for me to take COBRA, and retain the insurance my wife has?
 
Honestly, I don’t know how that works—I am not the primary person on that plan, of course, can I get COBRA too, and how much will that cost versus what I am going to have to pay for the insurance that I now have—so today, I am going to have to call my wife's Human Resources Department, something I have done before and which is akin to cutting your throat numerous times before you reach the proper vein.
 
Yes, you can be on the phone for hours before someone picks up your call, but heck, I’m retired and have nothing else to do, so why not waste a day on the phone?
 
I will let you know what happens, but my name has changed. It used to be Larry, and now it is Agita.
 
There is nothing more to say on this matter, but it appears that in this case, the cure really is worse than the disease. 

Rant #2,742: Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On

Good Morning!
 
It’s Wednesday, September 29, 2021, and we have exactly 93 days before this idiotic, horrid year ends and we move into a hopefully much better 2022.
 
But honestly, it is just another day on the schedule.
 
I have to go to my allergy doctor today for a “consultation,” something they used to do on the same day as the day I got my shots for the month, but now, for whatever reason, they separate the consultation into its own unique day.
 
I look on my Yahoo News feed—the pre-eminent news feed in the world, if you ask me—and I see that right near the top of the feed is the announcement that actress Katharine McPhee has teamed up with a lingerie company to bring the world the perfect bra for women, like herself, who are D cups or bigger.

 
I mean, come on, that is major news, isn’t it? … for both women and men, I guess ,,, and with pictures of McPhee in various stages of undress, I mean, this is REAL news, not fake news for all of us to dive into.
 
Good luck to her new venture, and I hope it busts out all over the place!
 
And what of Brian Laundrie, the “person of interest” in the Gaby Petito case?

 
By now, he is either out of the country or in an alligator’s stomach.
 
Your guess is as good as anybody’s, and is certainly as good as the less-then-Mayberry-like police who are on this case and have pretty much botched the whole thing since day one.
 
Where is Kojak when we need him?
 
All that this case proved is that big city police departments, such as New York City’s men and women in blue, are so much better at their jobs than these small town Podunk police forces.
 
These forces seem to be made up of one Barney Fife after another, but heck, the FBI can’t even find this guy … I think they have to ask Wally Gator what the deal is here at this point in time.
 
And then we have the New York Yankees, currently on a seven-game winning streak, trying to secure a spot in the MLB post season as the top team in the Wild Card race.

 
This is the most befuddling team I have ever seen in any sport, one day looking like world killers and the next day looking like they could not beat a Little League team.
 
They are on a really good streak now, with Giancarlo Stanton’s “homer a day” stance and with Aaron Judge not far behind.
 
The thought went through my head the other day that if the Yankees make the playoffs, win the Wild Card game, and somehow get through the playoffs to the World Series and win it, this will be, absolutely, the most unlikely team ever to win a championship in the team’s long and storied history, a team that was as down and out as possible during some stretches of the season, and very unwatchable at times.
 
But somehow, they grind away, and their remaining five games will be the proof in the pudding if this team is a mirage or the real thing.
 
Who celebrates birthdays today?
 
Actress Greer Garson, who left us in 1996, would have been 117 years old today.
 
Actor, singer and businessman Gene Autry, who passed away in 1998, would have been 114 years old today.
 
More recent births include singer and all-around troublemaker Jerry Lee Lewis, who turns 86 years young today.

 
I guess we can all blow out the candles on their birthday cakes, but there simply isn’t a “Whole Lot of  Shakin’ Going On” today.
 
Is there anything else of consequence happening on this obviously very slow news day?
 
No, not very much at all.
 
Like I said, it is jut another day on the calendar, and with everything going on in this bizarro world, I really hope that it can stay that way, don’t you?

Rant #2,741: Think

We live in a strange world right now.
 
In fact, I do believe we live in a “bizarro” world, an alternate universe from the world that we really live in.
 
However, the bizarro world has taken over, and I mean fully taken over, and it is going to take a lot of work to get back to the real world, the world that we know and love.
 
If you need any evidence of us living in a “bizarro” world right now, just look at what this supposed pandemic has done to each and every one of us.
 
It has divided us, given reason for us to worry about one thing or another, given us reason to be ultra-sensitive about everything, and quite frankly, has made us all crazy no matter where we stand on the subject.
 
Take yesterday, for example.
 
New York State Governor Kathy “The Yokel” Hochul, who went into the job she is in because her boss was so corrupt, and who has, since Day One of her term, been doing nothing but running for another term without doing much of anything else, put a mandate on health workers in the state, saying that if they were not at least into their first coronavirus “vaccine” shot by Monday, September 27, these workers would lose their jobs.
 
OK, “Hochul the Yokel” has deemed that the law of New York State, and whether you like it or not, agree with it or not, THAT IS THE LAW.
 
I put the last four words in caps purposely, because I do not think that many of these workers without their shots understood what this meant, and many still do not understand it.
 
Yes, there is great opposition to the shots, to the supposed unknowns that getting the shots put the shot getter in.
 
And other courts have blocked such mandates, including the one blocking New York City’s mandate to have all school workers inoculated.
 
But for those health care workers who refuse to get the shots … I happen to agree with them, they should not be forced to get the shots, but have they looked at the alternative?
 
Thousands of such workers were fired yesterday for non-compliance with the law. Many of those fired have put in 10, 20, 30 or more years on the job serving in our hospitals, yet they basically threw it all away with their stubborn attitude.
 
What id they throw away?
 
Well, quite simply, their livelihoods, their source of income, and the well-being of themselves and their families.
 
I know someone who is in the health care field, and while he does not agree with the mandate, he got his shots anyway, so that his life and the life of his family would not be upended.
 
(He also had no ill effects from getting his shots.)
 
He told me that weeks ago, he warned the many colleagues that he had that they would be fired from their jobs if they did not get the shots, and he also warned them that when you get fired, you do not get unemployment—and that goes for any job that you get fired from.
 
So those that went through with this? They have nothing to show for all the years of work that they put in.
 
Again, I do not believe that people should be forced to get these shots, but is what happened to them yesterday really worth the pain that they are now going to have to go through?
 
On the TV news shows yesterday, they interviewed several people who went through this. One said she was a single mother with three kids, and she did not know what she was going to do to feed her children.
 
Another said he would find a job in another field that did not require shots.
 
Well, bully for both of you.
 
To the first lady: get the first shot and see how it goes. Then you can feed your kids.
 
To the second gentleman: yes, I can only imagine the scenario of what will happen when you try to get a job in another field:
 
“Sir, I see that you were in the health care field for over 20 years … why did you leave that field.”
 
“I was fired from my job because I refused to get the coronavirus inoculations.”
 
“Well … you know, you can’t work here either, because we have more than 100 workers here, and we have instituted our own coronavirus shot mandate in our workplace, so, you can’t work here without the shots. We will keep your resume on file, and if things change, we might be in touch.”
 
Sometimes, one has to do things in life that they do not believe in, that they do not want to do, things that go against the very grain of their being.
 
The TV newscast I watched also interviewed another health care worker, who did not want her face shown on television. She said she is completely against the "vaccine" and being forced to take it.
 
However, she complied, and recently got her first shot.
 
She said that she would see how it went in the period between the first and second shots, and said she did it because, and only because, she did not want to lose her livelihood.
 
And again, she did not want her face shown on the air, I guess because she feared retaliation from her colleagues who refuse to get the shots.
 
And those going tor religious exemptions? Please, don’t make me laugh. Heck, whatever you say about the Pope, he has stated that it is OK to get the Pfizer or Moderna shots, and religious leaders pretty much in unison have agreed with him.
 
And then we have the strange case of Kyrie Irving, the Brooklyn Nets’ talented but ultra-temperamental player, who is waffling about whether, as mandated by New York State, he got the shots or not.
 
In New York State and in the city of San Francisco, athletes who play indoors and do not get their shots are barred from playing in the indoor arenas in both New York State and the State of California, respectively.
 
While it was “Meet the Team” day for all the NBA teams, and all the players were interviewed right there in person, Irving chose to do his interviews via Zoom, and when asked about his status, he clearly stated that he lives in a bizarro world of his own creation:
 
“I appreciate your questions, bro. Honestly, I like to keep that stuff private. I’m a human being first. And obviously, living in this public sphere, there’s just a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie. And I think I just would love to just keep that private and handle it the right way with my team and go forward together with a plan.
 
“So, obviously, I’m not able to be present there today. But that doesn’t mean that I’m putting any limits on the future of me being able to join the team. And I just want to keep it that way. So, if we can keep that private. If anybody has any further questions about that, please, it will be the same response. I would like to keep that private. And just please respect that, my privacy.”
 
He has every right to keep his status private, but as a public person, being paid millions upon millions of dollars to be a full-time part of this team, what is the “plan” in “the world of Kyrie?” To be a part time player, only allowed to play less than half his games with the team because of these mandates?
 
Seems to me that that is not a team player at all, but a crybaby who can afford to step away from his team when he wants to step away.
 
(And as you might know, he has taken leaves of absences before, and has broken COVID-19 protocol at least once with the team when last year, he went to a birthday party with people who were infected with the virus.)
 
Now, Irving can fully afford to do what he is doing, and the Nets aren’t going to day anything to upset their star player.
 
But it will certainly impact the fortunes of their team, which is built to win the championship this season—and with other superstars James Harden and Kevin Durant fully inoculated, whether they agree with that plan of action or not.
 
The healthcare workers who choose to throw everything they have worked for into the garbage pail?
 
I don’t think most can afford to do this on many levels.
 
Again, whether you agree with the mandate or not, there is too much at stake for most of these workers to turn it down.
 
I am sure they are banking on the mandate to be thrown out by some court, but heck, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t take such a chance at that happening.
 
Yes, we live in a “bizarro” world right now, and I simply do not know when we are ever going to get back any normalcy in our lives.
 
But I personally would want to weather all of this with a job in my hands, not with absolutely nothing to show for my years of service.
 
We supposedly have brains in our heads: let’s use them to get out of this mess the right way.

Rant #2,740: Bad to the Bone

… So let me tell you about my MRI.
 
I had the MRI on Thursday evening, when honestly, my leg felt a lot better than it had when I could barely walk on it just a week before.
 
I was strapped into the machine—it was a closed MRI—but happily, I did not have to go all the way into the machine, just basically up to my chest, so I wasn’t fully inside.
 
The technician asked me what music I wanted to listen to, and before I could say “rock and roll,” he had me plugged into what goes for "classic rock" today, stuff from the likes of Bon Jovi and the Scorpions, stuff that I hated when it was new and still don’t like.
 
But it is better than listening to Whitney Houston or Lionel Richie.
 
So after all the noise was over—there was plenty of it, as the MRIs were taken—I was done, and that was that.

 
Soon after, I received word about what I have in that knee, and it is not a torn meniscus.
 
I have proximal patellar tendinosis and very mild distal quadriceps.
 
In English, I have what is popularly known as "Jumper's Knee," and it is something I will have to deal with.
 
A lot of basketball players get it, hence the name.
 
I guess I sowed the seeds of this malady 50 years ago, playing basketball on the concrete courts in Rochdale Village in Queens.
 
Yeah, right.
 
More important, no tears, no breaks, it is all probably age-related.
 
Sprinkled throughout this Rant are pictures of my knee, and there is nothing to wince about when looking at these images. Sure, they are not as cute as my baby pictures are, but they are not repulsive at all.

 
I just have to be more careful when I turn over in my sleep, because that's how I got it.
 
Since then, it kind of bothered me during the weekend on an intermittent basis, but then the pain went away for hours.
 
I guess I could go for physical therapy, as I have done in the past, but honestly, I don’t think I need it for this malady this time around.
 
If there are exercises I could do at home to lessen the stress on that area, that would be fine.
 
And whatever the case, I will learn to live with this. The other things that I have had have been so much worse.
 
I actually volunteered for the MRI—I have been told nobody volunteers for getting one, but I really wanted to know for sure what it was, so I said I would do it.
 
Happily, that experience went pretty well this time around.
 
In the past, I have had some disturbing experiences related to getting an MRI—nothing criminal, but nothing I would put a happy face on.
 
Here is what I had to say about my very first MRI in Rant #792, dated August 27, 2012:
 
“I came into the room, had to take off any metal on my person--watches, belt buckles, etc.--and then I put myself on this thin gurney-type device, all sprawled out.
 
A support was put around my head to make sure I didn't move, and then I was pushed into the machine.
 
Happily, I don't have claustrophobia, because if I did, I would not have made it.
 
It was a closed MRI, as opposed to an open one, meaning that I was now in a pod-like structure where my nose was about three inches from its ceiling.
 
My arms were sprawled out to my sides, and boy, was it uncomfortable!
 
The pain was incredible. I know at one point, I yelled out, "Get me out of this thing," but the attendant basically talked me out of it.
 
I decided that this is something I had to do, so with the attendant telling me, "If I let you out of the machine, it's over!" I decided to stick it out.
 
What did I do to suppress the pain? I literally thought of nice things in my life, visualizing each one: my family, my wife, my daughter, things I like to eat (like hot dogs) ... anything to get my mind off of the pain.
 
I also tuned out whatever the attendant was saying to me, which wasn't the right thing to do. Her instructions were vital in getting me through this, but I couldn't listen to her screeching anymore.
 
Nor could I listen to the "relaxing" music they had on in the background. Sorry, Lionel Ritchie does not calm me down at all.
 
Finally, it was over, and yes, I hurt all over. My arm was really barking, but at least I got through it. The attendant told me that this wasn't going to be a group of the best "pictures" she had ever witnessed, "but they would be good enough to help the doctor plan my path.”
 
Yes, the first time around, the technician was like a little Hitler, yelling and screaming at me to get it right or else.
 
Funny, when I went for another MRI about a year and half ago, I mentioned this incident to the technician, and he knew exactly who I was referring to, and said, off the record, that I wasn’t the only one who had had a bad experience with this woman.

 
This time around, nothing with nothing, although hearing “You Give Love a Bad Name” really isn’t my cup of tea … but it’s certainly better than hearing “Saving All My Love For You” when going full throttle in the MRI way back when.
 
Now, hopefully, I can keep myself in one piece for the test of my life.
 
It is truly amazing that each time I hurt myself to the level that I needed an MRI, I did it while turning over in my sleep.
 
I just have to somehow, be more careful when doing so, but how do you make sure of that if you are in a deep sleep like I was during these occurrences?
 
I have no answer for that, but it is something that I am going to have to do.
 
But knowing me, I am almost waiting for the next shoe to fall, or the next bad turn in my sleep to happen.
 
That is not the way for a restful sleep, so I wonder why I sometimes have insomnia.
 
I do wish I could put the whole thing to bed, literally.