Thinks happen: Phone Call In The Middle Of The Night

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For the first ten days of 2009, Thinks Happen will feature the most visited blog pages of the two blogs, Thinks Happen and Lost Gallery. This will be in Letterman style, least-to-most, with the most visited page on January 10.

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From October 8, 2004, here's number EIGHT!

2004-10-03 Sunday - Resident Alien Insurance and how inconvenient it is...

When the phone rings in the middle of the night it is always disturbing. The Middle of the Night being that period about an hour just after falling asleep, when rest is really setting in, when the brain has just begun to relax and regenerate.

In sleepy fog the British telephone signal is not the ring the Americans are accustomed to hearing. It is a musical beep in pairs. The rhythm and pace and tone are unfamiliar.

On the third ring it goes to a message taking mode. Three rings, six beeps is not enough time for the brain, more asleep than awake, to identify the source of the sound. Also it is coming from mentally as far away in the mind as physically far away in the living room, three doorways away.

Once it has rung the mind slowly arises from its submergence of sleep, the streams and droplets of dreams draining away. And the program from then on is: Awake. It is much like a baby waking in the night. Baby knows that if it does a few of those newly discovered noises it has learned to make, that a sleepy, fuzzy-faced big person will come and play. Big person hopes a return to sleep is in the program for both.

Awake is a state that the brain considers a vast deserted stage. It is evermore trying to fill it with entertainment for itself. Every possible scenario of phone calls in the night is played on the mind's giant liquid crystal screen for the imagination to review and rewrite.

The cat has been found by the police and identified by its collar tag. Is it still alive? There is a new grandchild. Girl or boy, who was pregnant anyway? A neighbor is calling for help or perhaps, just annoyance. There has been a rain affecting an undergound cable and every phone on Bempton Crescent is ringing.

An insurance company in Philadelphia has neglected the presence of time zones and via a call center in India or New Zealand or perhaps Mars, has called this British phone with the information that they are closed and will be calling back...soon.

In reality, that is what it was: An insurance company returning an inquiry. A fact not discovered until several hours later when the answer machine was tapped.

So it seems that being 65 and wanting to buy health insurance in the US is an impossiblity, at least as far as insurance companies are concerned. One does not need health care insurance in America when you are 65 because you are already covered (?) by Medicare. The only health care insurance policies for people 65 or older are Medicare Supplement policies designed to link with Medicare coverage. No Medicare, no supplement.

Unless through marriage or an employment circumstance, a UK citizen cannot permanently emigrate to the US. The working age resident alien is covered by the employer's group plan. If that is not available then it is necessary to purchase one of a variety of separate plans available for all conditions, in all deductible ranges, for any size family. Unless one is age 65 and retired.

Then the rule is that you are eligible for Medicare coverage and a good Medicare supplement health care policy is all you really need. Unless one is a retired "resident alien."

An emmigrated "resident alien," age 65, retired, with an American spouse is elegible for US Medicare on the first wedding anniversary. The British Health Care system does not cover a US "resident alien" that is not on British Soil and has no established residence on British Soil.

So, until April 30, 2005 (wedding anniversary) Ann will not be covered by Medicare. She is not eligible for a Medicare Supplement until Medicare kicks in. Already 65, there are scant few health insurance plans available simply because noone in America needs one.

A couple policies that have been found run more than a thousand dollars a month and exclude everything that they can call a pre-existing condition. A couple others that seem more economical are hazy and do not answer inquiries. All of them seem little more than accident insurance. And they are sold by the year only... Ann needs coverage only for about 8 months.

So now we must shuffle plans a bit. To be drug out some more