Real World

Song lyric of the day : "I wish the real world would just stop hassling me"

So everyone knows that one of the chores that recent grads must deal with is finding health insurance, while also trying to find full-time jobs, because if there is no full-time job--well then there is no health insurance--at least until September...because well ObamaCare doesn't go into effect until then.

So needless to say after that first paragraph, I am going to go on record to say that I have been living without health insurance for over two months now, and that legitimately scares me. One: I don't have the money to support myself if God Forbid something terrible forces me to go to the doctor. And 2. Because I am a freelance production assistant, it means that I have also been putting myself in harms way at my job by lifting heavy boxes, playing with fire, etc. 3. because I live in NYC a majority of the week and there are lots more places to pick up colds, flus, get hit by random bikers (like I did on my birthday), and apparently bed bugs, than there are in my hometown of PA...again making me more prone to accidents or having to visit a dr.

Now--I haven't purposely been living without health insurance. I have been attempting to get myself health insurance since the day I graduated. I filled out paperwork, what felt like endless pages on the computer, and then i sat and waited. A few weeks later I went through underwriter questions on the telephone based on pre-existing issue I dealt with last year, and then I sat and waited again--and waited some more, until three weeks ago the insurance company that I was seeking insurance through called both my house phone and my cell phone to say they had to ask me questions. They then continued by sending me an email--immediately following the phone calls that I was unable to attend to. When I called back, I was put on hold for nearly a half hour, and I hung up. This resulted in me not having time to call back again, which resulted in chaos that will I will refrain from writing about on a public blog.

So today, I made time to make a phone call. I made the call, reached a real person--not an automated machine asking me to hold--and they asked me why I was calling them...that they had no record of needing to talk to me any further and that my status was still under review

I then responded by asking why do I keep getting calls asking me to call them back and the woman on the other side, with a tension in her voice answered my question by saying that it was automated and that I would continue getting the call until my status updated. When I asked why, if they had no questions for me, would the system still need to continue wasting my time...she answered by saying "that's just the way the system works."

So at the end of the day, there is still chaos--and there is still no health insurance. I sit ...still waiting in harms way.