strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive

Adventures with an unreliable narrator.

Jul 17 07: anger, too, is unhealthy

You know, a while back I had the audacity to ask Megacorp, my employer at the time, for a raise, pointing out that the wage I’d been living on for the previous four months was laughable¹ and that the timetable for the promised promotion-and-raise had gone seriously awry. In response, they treated me as a ‘volunteer’ during the round of layoffs going on at the time. And I have gritted my teeth and said, hey, that’s business with the Megacorps of the world.

Since then, I’ve been freelancing, and have spent well over a thousand dollars keeping my health insurance going, paying Company A a fee to keep telling Company B not to discontinue my coverage. The outlay of cash isn’t really an issue here. Sure, it’s outrageously expensive, but given that it’s no less than I paid when I was working at Megacorp, because Megacorp runs its staffing scene such that they don’t have to contribute to many of their workers’ benefits, I don’t really feel the pinch. But you’d think that by now, after several months and a lot of money out of my pocket, Company A and Company B would have agreed that I do, in fact, have health coverage.

You’d think. But no! So I get to pay for my drugs all by myself if I want the prescription filled today. Company A says that surely Company B will have this little snarl all fixed within the next 48 hours. Company B says nothing, because their customer-service line has already closed for the day. But to hell with all of them, because I’ve had this sore throat for a week and a half at this point and I am no longer in a mood to be patient.

Still, I’m just glad I don’t live somewhere with universal health-care coverage, because then I’d be a fucking Communist.

¹ No, really. An hourly wage that I had to bargain them up to that still makes people laugh because nobody could be expected to live on it in NYC. People think I’m kidding.

Commentary

Hey, don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. Us communists like our universal health-care coverage. Actually, it’s a lot like an HMO system, just on a larger scale. Most people also have some form of private health coverage as well, to cover the things that Medicare (Australia’s health system) doesn’t.
Sorry to hear about your struggles with the health insurance. I hope you feel better soon!

posted by Heather, Jul 17 07 7:09 PM

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