That’s exactly what I meant. Surely, since this program is providing a source of revenue (meaning personal income) to people other than pharmeceutical company owners and shareholders, then it isn’t just a “massive taxpayer-funded giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.” There are real people holding real jobs deriving real income through this “massive taxpayer-funded giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.” Those jobs and that income are the benefits I speak of which are not absorbed by the pharmeceutical industry. Otto, as the real person holding one of those real jobs earning a real income, should easily be able to identify that particular benefit of the program.
So, wait, you’re saying that a person not providing information to a client, where there is no other source of said information, is actually a good thing?
So, the equivalent, some scenario of “busy work,” where Person A does nothing to actually, you know, help Person B, even though Person A is actually supposed to be providing help to Person B, is good, as long as Person A is getting paid for this total lack of service? Sounds like welfare to me.
(I’m not at all coming down on Otto for keeping this job; I just have a problem with the thinking that this type of “customer service” is acceptable.)
No wonder the USA sucks, with such thinking as this. (Yes, I’m American, yes, it sucks here.)
Oh my god. You’re hanging your argument on the fact that I get a paycheck? Did you somehow possibly interpret my saying “massive taxpayer-funded giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry” to mean that all of the money from the government would go directly into pharma pockets?
Nope, not at all. You may have missed my initial post in this thread commiserating with Otto and bemoaning the wasted tax dollars.
I’m not really making any argument. I’m just pointing out, for those who may have missed the broader issue, that the federally tax-funded thing disparagingly labelled “corporate welfare,” actually provides many reasonably well-paying jobs for individuals. This is an entirely independent issue from how effectively the mission of any particular government program is fulfilled. Much of the money spent eventually works its way into the pocketbook of individual citizens. so there is a real benefit to the program regardless of who the program helps, or how (or poorly) well it happens to do so.
Try that formulary site again, Otto. I got it to work yesterday and it printed out a nice list of all the plans that cover all of my mother’s current medications. I found it through www.medicare.gov, I think. I am picking out my mom’s plan and I think it is easier than the mess I just went through to pick my own benefits.
My husband is disabled but insured through my work. We got a lovely letter at work from the insurance company saying that the new Medicare drug benefit was better than our current drug plan (according to our pharmacist, this means our current plan “must really suck”).
Since the law was written to penalize people who keep their current plans if they aren’t as good as the Medicare plan, we suddenly found ourselves in a scramble to see if we needed to get signed up. I cannot believe the mess they’ve made of this.
If anyone is still looking for a plan, the Humana site is the most useful one for their plan, and they are the only ones in this area that offer brand name doughnut coverage.
I actually had to explain to the pharmacist how a couple of aspects of the plan work because he hasn’t gotten any training yet. He’s furious.
Oh, and then in US News they claim that signing up for a Medicare plan means that you’ll be automatically kicked off any current plan, which is a damned lie.
God, it’s a mess. I’m ending up helping all the family members of everyone I know try to figure out what they need to do.
I’m still unclear on how confusing this new plan is. Moreover, the implementation of it. If the people in charge of answering the myriad questions about it don’t know the answers, seems an ever bigger waste of tax dollars.
Of course, I know the bill was passed by members of both sides of the aisle, anyone have a link to individual votes on it? If even a call center is run this poorly for something so vital to many, party affiliation takes a back seat to the overall fucked-upedness* of Washington in general. I’m not flaming anyone here, but I have to dejectedly say (since the plan, IMO, will actually do more harm) that I’m in no way shocked to see major problems in DC getting involved with an ever larger part of health care.
*If it’s not a word, it should be!
Honestly? It’s not that bad once you get your feet under you. I can even give a rundown on it in about 5 minutes that everyone I’ve spoken to seems to grasp.
That’s to understand the basic “This is what Medicare demands” part. One of the things that’s hard to grasp is the incredible silliness of the so-called “Doughnut hole” or “gap.” Most people find that difficult to understand because it defies logic.
Figuring out which precise plan is best was easy for me because of my husband’s circumstances. He needs gap coverage. He takes a couple of brand-name drugs. That limited our options to… 1. Ran the numbers and discovered that it would save us about $1000/year, even with his existing coverage.
No, it’s really not. The problem being that those of us, at least in my call center, who were responsible for helping everyone else get their feet under them were knocked off our own pins. Repeatedly.
I’m sorry if it sounded like I was belittling what you’re going through. I’m not! You weren’t given the proper tools or training, especially to explain the system to people coming at it cold.
But I would like to thank you for helping anyone you’re able to help.
Aaaaand the “random” drug tests begin…
I missed some of this, mostly because I’ve grown non-chemically numb, but earlier today a woman was caught smoking crack in the restroom. Why anyone, even when on crack, would think that smoking crack at work was a good idea, or that the stench of, well, buring crack wouldn’t tip off even our security guards that someone might just be smoking crack, is a puzzle far beyond my capacity.
Anyway, the response was twofold: 1) to remove the outer bathroom door and the stall doors from the women’s bathroom. This went over exactly as well as could be expected and the doors were all swiftly replaced; 2) “random” drug tests were implemented starting that day. I don’t know how “random” they were really, because strangely everyone who got “randomly” selected for testing was black and male. Regardless, this sort of testing is in clear violation of company policy and, IIRC, state law. Pre-screening testing is allowed, and testing for cause or following an accident is allowed.
I mentioned this to my “team leader,” who assured me that I had signed a paper giving my employer the right to drug test me at will. Show me this paper, I requested. Oh, I can’t do that, he rejoined, but I can get you a blank copy of the paper. Please do, I responded, because I wanted some proof of this preposterous assertion on his part.
Never got the paper, but a company-wide email went out shortly thereafter, explaining the company drug policy. Drug testing may be required as a pre-requisite to employment, and it may be required for reasonable cause or after an accident. In other words, exactly what I said.
I sure hope the people “randomly” selected for testing sue the shit out of someone.