Friday, October 30, 2009

Menu Management for Morons

I bought a quart of milk today, to replace the one that passed its exipry date about 7 weeks ago. Since this milk is fresh, I want to make mashed potatoes for dinner. I also have leftover peas in the fridge that need to be eaten. So which leftover entree should I have, the beef or the pork? Easy. Alliterative alimentation requires that I have Pork with my Peas and Potatoes. The beef will just have to wait for another day, one on which I feel like making Brown rice and steaming Broccoli.

But wait...crisis...the beef is leftover Pot roast...

Maybe I should just go out for Pizza and Pepsi with a chaser of Pepto-bismol.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We Need National Single-Payer Health Care!

Okay, so this is trivial in the grand scheme of things. But I got a replacement credit card today, and my health insurance is auto-paid on this credit card, so I need to update that payment information to put in the new expiration date. You'd think this would be easy, since after all I'm trying to give them money for which they've done nothing. But no. They have a website, but there's no place to access payment information, there's no FAQs on the subject, there's no way to contact customer service online, and it gives no phone numbers or email addresses. I have an insurance card, and it has about a half-dozen phone numbers, but none of them are relevant to my problem (at least, not on the face), and I just know that if I get on the phone I'm never getting off again.

If the insurance company can't even provide an easy way to do this simple task, how can I expect them to help me out when I really need help?

This is why I have never used this insurance--I'm paying for nothing, really. I'm terrified that even a simple visit to a doctor for a hello-how-are-you checkup will put me into such a hell of claims processing that my stress level will go through the roof, necessitating a visit to the psychiatrist or cardiologist or (probably) both. I maintain this insurance solely for catastrophic (to my bank account) occurrences.

So I'm just not going to update this expiration date. If they need it, they know where to find me. God forbid an insurance company go unpaid, even for a day, so I'm sure they'll find me.

If we just had health care provided by our government, like all civilized countries, this wouldn't be stressing me out. Call it single-payer, call it "public option," call it socialism if you want to, but just get it done!