Which way is it to the Canadian border please??

September 9th 2008

I had a really hard day today. Tears were involved.

We had that new employee orientation and it turns out it was just 4 hours of some administrator taking us through the hell they call the health insurance system. Oh sure they eased us into purgatory by describing the history of the university (yawn! boring) and informed us that university policy adhered to the New Hampshire motto of, live free or die. But then they fired up the kiln and said welcome to Health Insurance Hell. HippieHusband and I sat and listened. It was daunting.

There are three medical plans – simple enough, right? Nope. You have to know which plans cover what services, and even then when you think they cover a particular medical service, you still have to pay. There are terms like copay, co-insurance, and deductible , which I would only use to refer to car. But under this system, cars and humans are equivalent. Abbreviations like PPO (preferred provider organization ) PP (preferred pharmacies), and OOP (out of pocket expenses) are plentiful in the two -inch stack of papers they gave us to read.

Depending on the plan and each specific medical service you may or may not have to pay a flat fee. In addition, there’s the deductible and finally the co-insurance, the amount that the insurance actually covers. But all of this only applies if you use a doctor who is in the preferred provider network. If you go outside of this network – it will cost more. One plan covers 100% of preventative health care but if you are in an emergency it will only cover you 70% and only after you have paid the deductible. This doesn’t even cover the Dental and Vision plans – all of which have the same plan names as the medical but they’re not related.

AHHHH!!!! Which way to the Canadian border please?!

When I told the woman presenting the material (who by the way was HUGE and had this smug expression) that we were from Canada, her response was, “I’m so sorry. This will be a shock to your system.” No shit sherlock.

Perhaps instead of new employee orientation they should call it, “Bullshit 101” When we asked people which combination of plans (Medical, Dental, Vision, and Disability – LongTerm and ShortTerm) they thought was the best, they’d put their hands on our shoulders and shake their heads. Inevitably they’d say, “We’ve lived here for x number of years and we can’t figure it out.” Everyone we talked to didn’t like the system.

So if no one likes the system – how come it still exists?

SIDEBAR: Well it turns out Barack Obama wants to create a National Health Plan that will provide benefits similar to that offered through Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). If you read his proposed policy on health care reform it sounds too rosy. John McCain, on the other hand wants to use competition to improve “the quality of health insurance” not the health of individuals. He plans to give cash in the sum of $2500 to individuals and $5000 to families. The question I have is – will that cover the co-pays, or the co-insurance, or just the deductible for a family during the course of a year? It sounds like a very Harperesque solution. Remember day care dollars. SIDEBAR ENDS.

Immediately after four hours of health insurance hell, I had a meeting with my supervisor, the lab tech, and another faculty member (the Expert on VeryVerySmallOrganism). I have changed systems and gone from a VeryVeryLargeOrganism to working on a VeryVerySmallOrganism (VVSO). Despite reading voraciously about VVSO, it’s hard to get used to the jargon. The whole meeting I felt like I had moved to a foregin country whose language I didn’t know. Oh yeah wait, I have.

At the end of the day I was exhausted, lonely, and really homesick. HippieHusband tried consoling me but I missed Canada and my friends, especially BestFriend. In SmallTown, people are very friendly and we do know some people here, but it takes time to make good friends. Plus we still didn't have any of our furniture, dishes, stuff you need to live day to day. It was still in a commercial trailer somewhere in America. Really I just wanted home.

Then the most amazing thing happened. I was coming out of the bathroom and I thought I heard the CBC radio program, “As It Happens” on NPR. I could hear the voice of Mary Lou Finley so I followed the sound to our kitchen, where the stereo and speakers are temporarily located, and in my pyjamas just sat down at the kitchen table, listening to little piece of home. Suddenly, I felt better.

Maybe it won’t be so bad, after all.