Not surprised - 30 Sept 2021

 I spent the day with Medicare.  Well, I started yesterday when I formally and officially applied for Medicare coverage.  I was following a guidebook, generally quite good and very useful, but it left a misimpression that has caused some grief.  Toward the end of the book, there is a checklist to enroll in Medicare.  It makes a blithe reference to the fact that it could take "10 minutes or less" to enroll.  Yeah, about that.  It may take as few as 10 minutes to enter the required information in the Medicare forms (on-line, of course), but then there is a delay while the application is processed (in Albequerque) and a Medicare number is issued.  I got an email to confirm that my applicaton had been recived, but it contains no Medicare number.  The email leaves a gentle impression that the process is quick - but there is no commitment.  

today, I went to register for the Medigap Plan and a corresponding Part D drug plan.  After you enter a bunch of information, it prompts for a Medicare number.  Not unreasonable, but I have none - yet - so I am stuck.   So much for the "10 minute" enrollment.  In a chat-conversation with Betty, a representative of the Medigap insurance company, I discover that it can take "weeks" to get the critical Medicare number.  So I left the Plan process partially completed and started the Plan D drug plan application.  The the surprise of precisely no one, that too needs a Medicare number.  Therefore, I am nominally left without insurance while Medicare proceeds.

Ah!  I hear a shout from the back of the room.  You should have started sooner!  Yes, it would have been prudent to do so.  However, I was awaiting inforation about COBRA benefits from the HR department, and that took a while to arrive.  I had been thinking that I might use COBRA for family coverage through the end of 2021, then pick up on Medicare.  Add in other, personal delays, and I simply did not have enough time with the information to make a decision.

A further complexity is that Medicare is *personal* insturance.  One gets coverage for the self -- and not for the spouse.  COBRA would have covered the spouse; this another factor in the decision process.  Finally, COBRA is expensive.  Surprisingly expensive.  If I were on Social Security, COBRA would consume nearly half of my monthly payment (assuming Social Security were not taxed - which is it, thank you Ronald Reagan).  So my wife spent several hours today to file for WA state health coverage under ACA.  I am glad it exists, but the bureaucracy is astounding.  We are trying to pay them money and the insurance companies make it hard.  SMH.

So, I am technically not covered by insurance.  The last time I made an insurance claim was... 2019?  Maybe?  Anyway, I have chosen to take the risk -- and I can document the fact that I tried to get coverage (tho that may not help in any future discussions, I did try).