Austin Texas

So the last couple of days haven’t exactly turned out like I expected. I’m sitting in a car repair shop in Austin, Texas trying to get some work done while I wait for my car to be repaired.

Some people connected with the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas read my story about our family’s insurance mishaps. It so happens that our state legislature is considering the powers and direction of the state insurance oversight department. I was asked to come to Austin to the hearing and give testimony.

The idea was to drive to Austin Tuesday (about an hour drive), tell my story, then drive home that afternoon. Well, that was the plan anyway.

Then my car broke down south of Austin. It acted like it had run out of gas, but I had plenty in the tank. Shelton Green (Political consultant for the CLC and a GREAT guy) helped me find a mechanic. I waited on the side of I-35 for about an hour and a half, waiting for a tow truck. Waiting on the side of the road in Texas in June is not pleasant, especially not at noon. I retreated to a nearby tree to wait in the shade, only to be attacked by rogue birds. Well, maybe attacked is a strong word, but they were definitely agitated by my presence and flew menacingly around my head.

The tree I stood under

This bird and his friends did NOT trust me

My car was towed to Lamb’s, a local mechanic shop, and Shelton drove me to the capital where the Sunset Commission was beginning testimony on insurance issues for our state.

Initially I was concerned that I might miss my call to testify, but that fear was clearly unfounded since I wasn’t called until almost 9 pm. From 2 pm until 9 pm, the legislators charged with analyzing our state’s insurance oversight department listened to a steady stream of lobbyists and advocates speak to various esoteric and painfully detailed insurance issues. I just wanted to tell them how easily working families can find themselves labeled as uninsurable. My 5 minute story might have been helpful since the legislators pay close attention to unpaid citizens who come to these things at their own expense to tell their stories.

Sunset Oversight Commission for the Texas Department of Insurance

Afterwards I had dinner with some new friends, various political advocates who work with non-profit organizations - the good guys. By then it was too late to get my car, so I had to spend the night.

And now....it’s 1 pm on Wednesday, and my car still isn’t ready. I have a 1999 Chrysler Concord. That’s not particularly new, but it is new enough to be run mainly by computers and various sensors. Something is telling the car it is out of gas or shutting it down for some other reason. The mechanics feel it is not a mechanical problem with a fuel pump or anything like that. They are replacing the crank sensor, which is apparently sending faulty information to the car’s computer.

So here I sit.

Observations from my time in Austin:

Politicians and the political process - As I watched advocates and lobbyists and citizens parade before a legislative committee, it was clear that there was no way I was going to be able to understand the complex power structures of our state political process. Sometimes the legislators seemed bored. They sometimes left and didn’t come back for a long time. But there were various aids listening and taking notes. I’ve been an insider in enough systems to recognize something complex when I see it. I decided that my story might or might not make a difference, but I came to tell it in hopes that it might. Someone is watching and taking notes. “A concerned citizen drove to Austin because his family cannot get health insurance due to being unfairly profiled.” Perhaps my testimony will end up being such a note in someone's report.

Still, the politicians definitely do sit up and take notice when an average citizen speaks. I think there were only two or three of us during the entire process. But we were treated very respectfully, whereas many of the lobbyists received some fairly pointed questions and criticisms. One of the senators called them, “suits.”

What I hope comes out of this is a greater understanding on the part of our state leaders that everyday men, women, and children are being profiled and labeled as “uninsurable” by private insurance companies. You have some protections seeking insurance with a group through an employer, but if you are seeking insurance on your own, you can be rejected for unfair reasons. With no incentive to take you, the insurance company can reject you for for any reason, real or imagined. Why should they take a chance?

This is a problem because health insurance is not a luxury item. You have to have it if you are going to get good medical treatment. No one can afford to pay for their own health care anymore. Even a simple mammogram followed by an MRI and a series of lab tests can easily cost $5000. A family of five with a health problem or two in a year can find themselves hopelessly in debt in no time without insurance. And of course, after you pay all that you have for the treatment - which will not be enough - you will never be able to afford the medication they prescribe.

Cars - The question with cars is not "Will they break down?" but "When will the next breakdown occur?" You never know when. And when it happens, you just have to swallow hard and deal with it. I hate spending money to fix cars, certainly, but I hate the loss of time even more. I don’t have a lot of time margins in my life. We have a retreat coming this weekend. I have a sermon to prepare for Sunday. And I have a lot of work to do with the blog networks I run. I did not want to lose most of Tuesday and - apparently - most of Wednesday.

It’s a spiritual exercise to take a deep breath and try to let go of worrying about things you cannot control. I’m better at this at 46 than I was at 36, but still not there. One spiritual excercise that helps me deal with this kind of stress is to intentionally pay attention to little things. Okay, I'm on the side of the highway, so what can I watch and learn while I am here?

That brings me to plants on the side of the road - While walking to my shade tree beside I-35, I stumbled through a strange kind of grass with spear-like points. By the time I got to the tree, I noticed that 8 or 10 spears of seed-laden grass had impaled themselves on my shoelaces and were on for the ride, hoping I would take them somewhere where they could continue to propagate their species. I’m always impressed with the various ways that nature has evolved to seize any opportunity to survive. In this case, these stalks of grass ended up in the trash, but their heroic effort was duly noted and appreciated.

rlp

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More insurance insanity. I don’t know if anyone is interested in what I’m writing. It’s all I can think about today. Maybe it’s a good case study. Our insurance situation is so complex that I can’t explain it fully here. The short version is that my wife no longer has a job, so we’ve been using the COBRA law to keep our health insurance with Humana, the insurance company used by her former employer. The COBRA law says that you must be allowed to keep your insurance for 18 months after you leave a job or lose a job.

At one point it seemed that I was going to have to leave Humana and lose my mental health benefits. That’s when I told you that I was trying to figure out how to buy Wellbutrin, the drug I take for depression, online.

This is one of the hard things about trying to figure out insurance. Things change all the time. Jeanene had to break away from our family plan because she needed some yearly examinations. We were worried that if the doctors found anything, she wouldn’t be able to get insurance later, when we have to leave Humana. Technically that’s true for all of us. However, my middle daughter has no other option but to remain with Humana until that coverage runs out. We’ve decided it makes better sense for me to stay on that plan with her and the other two girls. So I’ll have mental health benefits for another year or so. That means I can buy Wellbutrin with a reasonable co-payment.

Now there has been a colossal SNAFU with our insurance company. When Jeanene left Humana in March, they mistakenly cancelled the policy for our entire family. No one told us. We got no cancellation notice. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription two weeks ago and was told that my insurance had been cancelled. I knew a mistake had been made because we’ve never been late with a payment.