Category: Rants

I am extremely careful on the internet, social media, with online purchases, and very judicious with the use of a credit or debit card out in the world, yet once again, my credit card has been breached. We belong to USAA and they are great at catching the fraudulent use, catching 3 attempts to use it for about $1600 worth of ticket purchases in Houston. However, they did not notify me this time, we saw the declined attempts on our statement when another suspicious pending charge appeared. My card has yet again been shut down and a new one being processed for me. This is a tough time of year for it to happen, with the holiday’s approaching, as I don’t like to shop, don’t care for crowds, and currently due to DH’s injury, don’t leave the house for any length of time short of quick grocery or med runs.

Then to add to this frustration, today we went to pick up a regular prescription for DH to find that with the Rx insurance for which we pay dearly, the 90 days refill was more than double what it was last time it was refilled. Without insurance, the med was less than the old insurance cost. So we pay almost 3 times the med cost to use the insurance that we pay for to reduce or help pay for the medications required. I don’t understand how the insurance companies get away with that. It approaches fraud. How can the co-pay be much more than the cost of the medication.

How can other countries provide free or inexpensive medical care and free or inexpensive medications while our costs continue to rise.

Why have we become such an entitled society that such terms exist? I would hate to have the name or have named one of my children one of those names. I think it is unconscionable that names have been used to define those that feel entitled. Posts on social media are rife with stories of those that feel so entitled to cause physical or emotional pain or inconvenience to others.

Recently a social media friend made an offer to make a purchase for me from a craftsman that lives thousands of miles from me and whose shop I could not possible visit. She reached out to several other friends to purchase for them as well. My new fiber tool arrived yesterday and it is gorgeous, but I kept it to myself, only letting the friend know it arrived. This particular craftsman does a few events on the West Coast near their home, does online updates of their products where dozens of folks vie to make a purchase when the update goes live, and often offers their products as prizes for challenges for an online group of their followers. Additionally, they provide some of their tools to a couple of their grandchildren for them to sell and learn economics and earn money for big events. The friend that made the purchases and another friend who benefited from her visit posted their new tools online, so I did also. The friend then received a not nice message from someone who felt that it was unfair that they didn’t have the opportunity as well. As a result, we took our shares down from the site. To me, this is just another example of feeling entitled and it was a very petty expression of the message sender as my friend had been invited to the craftsman’s house to make the purchases.

Folks, life isn’t always about you. It isn’t always “fair.” Practice restraint and kindness, it goes a long way to making this a better world.

With recent health issues in our household, there have been a couple of hospitalizations and a whole new pharmacy on the dresser top. We are senior citizens and have Medicare plus a supplemental health plan and an Rx plan that is supposed to reduce the cost of prescription medications. The Medicare and supplemental plan have prevented any out of pocket expenses so far, though one of the doctor’s from the first hospitalization has billed Medicare for something for which they have already paid and Medicare declined to pay it a second time obviously. It still shows up on our summaries with a zero balance, but shows a declined expense. The pharmacy side is another story. We pay a significant monthly fee to have the medications at least partially paid for by the insurance plan, a three tier system that lets us know what our co-pay is for each med in the tier, but if we ask the pharmacy what the cash price is, it is often half what the co-pay would be. If we use the insurance, we are paying not only the monthly payment for the plan, but double the cost of paying cash on top of it. This just doesn’t make any sense to us. Fortunately, we know to ask what the difference would be and have paid cash for several of the scripts that have been called in.

Also, scripts never have a refill number on them anymore and most, except antibiotics, come in 90 supplies so a large bill every three months instead of spreading it out. To get a refill, you must contact the pharmacy who then contacts the physician for authorization on a medication that you know you will be required to take long term (not pain meds, but maintenance meds to prevent the condition from worsening). If you call the physician’s office, the robot voice tells you to contact the pharmacy.

The surgeon tells you to call and schedule a follow up in 4 weeks and the soonest they can see you is 5 weeks or more.

Our system is broken and we are among the lucky ones to be able to have and afford insurance to cover our issues. I don’t know what the solution is, but certainly not the way it is being done now.