As my longtime readers know, I used to work for IBM. I worked for IBM for 31.5 years. I started out in the Mattel Office Products Division repairing typewriters, magnetic media typewriters, and dictation equipment (which was pure crap). Selectric typewriters (the kind with the little ball) were fun to work on. I ended up my long career as a systems programmer on the big iron (mainframes) with stops along the way as a Customer Engineer working on mainframes and peripherals, as an instructor teaching mainframes, as an instructor teaching systems programming, while working as a systems programmer which I taught myself how to do after my accident which left me as a T12/L1 incomplete paraplegic. During that time, I was essentially doing two full time jobs as a sysprog and an instructor. I worked for a real good manager at that time who compensated me very well for working those two full time jobs. I finished my career as a full time sysprog where I worked for my CDSM. I would have worked longer, but I got tired of his bullshit and since I had invested my money wisely and had a nice pension, I was able to retire at 58. I was twice offered to come back to my old job as a contractor and both times I turned it down. I turned down a lot of money, but I was tired of his crap.
You prolly read in the news that IBM has dumped its retiree health insurance. That’s not entirely true. What they are doing is giving us money that we can use to buy insurance on exchanges. They have hired a company that is supposed to help us in buying our insurance.
As an aside, when I was in St. Louis, I had dinner with two of my IBM friends who are married to each other. She has full retirement from IBM. He doesn’t since he didn’t work long enough for IBM to get it. He’s on her insurance. She was a bit apprehensive about her insurance options. I said that this is because of Obummercare. That’s the only mention I made of Obeavis that night. It was a bit of a dig since I talked to him on election day and he was voting for Obutthead because “he had kept us out of a depression”. When I mentioned Obummercare, he didn’t say a word and that’s all I said because I really didn’t want to rub his face into it, even tho’ you could say that I did just a little bit. Elections and bad decisions have consequences.
But, I digress.
Originally, I thought that this was gonna suck, because I like the Senior Advantage plan that I have with an HMO. I have been with this HMO since 1986, shortly after I moved to Atlanta and right after this HMO opened up in Georgia. They took care of me when I had my accident and they’ve been taking care of me ever since, so when I heard the news about IBM dumping us on exchanges, I was really pissed.
Right before I left for Camp Blownstar, I received a letter from IBM stating that I could stay with my plan and would deal directly with the HMO and the money that they would put in the Healthcare Reimbursement Account could be used to help pay for it.
As a good little retiree, I had gone on the exchange company’s website and enrolled. Enrolling was a pain in the ass because of the password I had to create. I’m normally able to memorize my passwords but the password rules made it impossible to create a password I could memorize. I dutifully followed all the steps which included posting all the drugs I am on (to help pick out a Part D. plan which I don’t need since I get my meds through my HMO), some medical info about myself and some other pertinent info, and then scheduling an appointment with an enrollment counselor to help me pick out an insurance plan on the exchange. This is not an insurance company. It’s a company that will help me buy insurance.
About three weeks ago, I scheduled my call to talk to a counselor at 7:00 PM last night. Michael and Cindy had invited me over to their house for pizza and to watch the Braves do their usual post season swoon so I had to call the company from their house.
So, I called and after wading through the voice response system, I finally got to speak to a human. It went downhill from there. She told me that there must be some mistake because IBM retirees weren’t supposed to call until November. I muttered under my breath, “I’m shocked!” It must not have been under my breath because she responded, “You’re shocked?”
Yep! I told her I had followed all the instructions on the web site. All the information I had received from IBM said the enrollment period was from October 1 to December 31. I was just following the process. How could the process be wrong?
So she said that while she had me she wanted to verify the info I had already entered. Listening to someone not familiar to the drugs I’m on try to pronounce them is a hoot. Like Oxcarbazapine. That’s a fun one. Or Simvastatin.
I told her that I didn’t need to talk to her about my health insurance since I’m staying with my HMO, but I did need to have help finding a dental plan for me. All she could do was schedule an appointment for me in November since that’s when I should have scheduled my appointment in the first place and I guess I should have known that by some mysterious method. Surprisingly enough, after the “I’m shocked”, my sarcasm was a little more subtle than usual, and I cheerfully let her schedule an appointment in November for me. I wrote it down and hung up.
The Braves lost. I’m shocked! It’s the post season. For some reason, they don’t do well in October. Fourteen straight division tiles under Bobby Cox in the 90’s and the 00’s and they only have one World Series title to show for it. They did leave Dan Ugla off the roster and for some strange reason he was pissed. Maybe if he had hit above .200, they would have let him play. The two highest players on the Braves are Dan Ugla and B.J. Upton. Neither of them hit above .200 this year.
I got home last night and there was a message on my answering machine from the counselor I had talked to earlier. She had talked to her supervisor and was calling to apologize to me for our earlier encounter and told me I could call anytime to schedule an appointment with a counselor. Huh? WTF? That’s what the call last night was supposed to be. And that’s what the call in November is supposed to be. I talked to Cindy about it and she told me that she prolly didn’t talk to her supervisor, her supervisor talked to her. Those calls are recorded and her supervisor prolly noticed how she had screwed the pooch on the call and had chewed her out and told her to call me back and apologize and to try to make it right. Welcome to the new healthcare in America. It will get worse before it gets better.
Elections have consequences.
We’re doomed!
Speaking of fun with healthcare, I was just at the pharmacy to pick up my pain meds and happened to overhear the pharmacists discussing new drug regulations. They mentioned something about Methadone being regulated so that there is a limit on how much would be available for the whole country in any one year period. Eeek!!!
Clearly the people making these regulations have never been in any kind of pain or have never had anyone dear to them that is suffering. Who are these people? And what kind of drugs are *they* taking? Argh!
DDP – As a methadone user, that could affect me.
I know, Denny. Me too. Scary times.
Also, I could see how my comment could be misread. To be clear, I also take a derivative of methadone for pain. It worries me that these drugs are getting harder and harder to get for the people who really need them.
“. . . the password rules made it impossible to create a password I could memorize.”
I don’t bother memorizing passwords any more. I don’t even use consistent or even meaningful user names. Instead, I use an encrypted store containing account info. Granted, if anyone ever gets the passphrase to the store, they own me, but in the meantime, the individual accounts are about as secure as they can be.
Specifically, I use KeePass. It’s available on PCs, Macs, smart phones (iPhone), and tablets (iOS and Android). You can google it or go to sourceforge.net.
I highly recommend it.
I agree….we’re doomed….wish it weren’t so…a moron could fix all this, unfortunately we have less than that in power…
Denny:
Concerning passwords. I’ve been using a program called Password Keeper for about 20 years. Once you install it you need a password to access it. It has a ton of features including a password generator that allows you to spec out the password parameters. It allows one click copy and paste and clears the clipboard after a user designated time period.
Here is the link if you or anyone else is interested: http://www.gregorybraun.com/
Denny, at least she did call you back.
And, as I said in my post, I’m sure it was her supervisor who had her do that after listening to the call. I got an online survey request from the company this AM and I had a lot of fun filling it out. It mentioned the rep by name and I expressed my opinion of her and of the company running this program. I abhor incompetence. It got me in trouble at IBM a few times when I pointed out the incompetence of some of my coworkers and some IBM managers. The nice thing is, I outlasted almost all of them. Many of the managers I worked for and with in the Office Products Division, most of whom were incompetent, didn’t make it to full retirement like I did. They all thought I would fail when I transferred to the FE Division. Instead I prospered. It was refreshing to work for competent managers who treated me like an adult. Most of my coworkers in the Field Engineering Division were competent as well. Treat me like an adult and I’ll respond like an adult. Treat me like a child, like I was treated in the OP Division, and I’ll respond like a child. How hard is that?
True story. The day before I moved over to the FE division, my manager (who hated me) and his manager (who really hated me) took me out to lunch, as was SOP for people getting promoted or transferred. As we were leaving the restaurant, my manager’s manager shook my hand, looked me right in the eyes, and said, “Well Dennis, I hope you get everything you deserve.”
I looked him in the eye and said, “Vern, I’m sure I shall.”
We both knew exactly what each of us meant. He was hoping I would fail miserably. During my first executive interview with my new branch manager he told me that OP told him that he could have me but warned him that I had an “attitude problem”. He told them that they knew what to do with people with “attitude problems” in the Field Engineering Division. A friend of mine in FE talked me up and the branch manager pulled a few strings to get me into FE. It saved my career. I worked the next eight years as an FE CE and never had a single attitude problem. This guy was the best branch manager I ever worked for. He later left to take a regional manager job in Atlanta much to the chagrin of most of us in that branch office. We thought he was a really great manager. I saw him in Atlanta about two years after I had become an instructor. I told him that I was now working as an instructor and he told me he already knew because he liked to keep track of most of the people who had worked for him over the years. I could also tell that he would have preferred to remain a branch manager in St. Louis. He got the shaft in Atlanta.
I serve on the Board of Trustees for a health insurance consortium that covers about 2,000 lives. Because of Obamascare our premiums will be going up about 25% in January, but that’s not the real scary part. A national VP of one of the largest insurers in the country spoke at our last Board meeting in September.
In answering a question about seasonal workers and coverage requirements he said “Anybody that tells you they fully understand this crap is lying. The guidance we get from Washington on this question and hundreds of others changes on a DAILY basis.”
The whole bullshit premise was to cover the uninsured. We could have done that by fully funding Medicare and Medicaid so Docs taking assignment could make a living, and expanding eligibility for Medicaid to cover those for whom private insurance would cost over a certain percentage of their income. Would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, and the system is already in place.
The premise was bullshit from the word go. The far left that owns the Dimocrats right now squints their eyes up when they beat off and chant “single payer, single payer, OMG I’m coming, single payer”. Single payer has been their wet dream since FDR.
Denny, I retired from IBM Charlotte in 2000 after 30 yrs. I had my appt yesterday afternoon and got a very knowledgeable broker who found policies that fit my budget and health profile with a minimum of ass ache. I was then transferred to the person who actually filed my applications with the insurance companies for coverage. This person was pretty much useless regarding questions during the application process. Clearly reading from a prepared script that was light on details. At first she hesitated to repeat her name and then was a pain in the ass when I asked her to spell it.
It took about 2 hrs to complete everything and now I get wait to see if I am accepted by the companies. I hope this was a one time thing but am afraid it will be repeated each year.
It is hard to complain much as I wouldn’t have wanted to search for a good match on my own.
Good luck on your appt call.
It was prolly Vivian, the useless bint I had to deal with. Heh! Extend Health just sent me a survey to fill out online and it mentioned Vivian by name. Did I have a lot of fun filling that survey out? You betcha! I abhor incompetence in any form which is just one of the many reasons I hate Jug Hussein Ears Downgrade.
I am waiting for IBM to announce that they will drop my wife from my coverage. She is retired and eligible for Medicare.
I will not have the old IBM benefits, so we are probably screwed even more than the folks who started IBM prior to 1998.
Yeah. I started in 1973 so I am on the old pension plan. I feel sorry for the employees who got the rug pulled out from under them and got the new pension plan. One of my coworkers missed the cutoff by two weeks. I would have felt sorry for him except he had been promoted to management about six months earlier and had turned into a real major league asshole.
A old family friend of ours worked at IBM too. He was supposedly the one who invented & developed the “Selectric” ball typewriter for IBM! He is also one of the early programmers of mainframes from the mid-sixties. He wrote the entire FAA program in 1965 as his Masters Dissertation. He’s a genius that’s for sure! He is originally from Scranton Penn. but now lives in So. Cal. like I do. His name is Don Watson. Just wondered if you had ever met him way back when you were working there. We met him in 1976 & he’d already left IBM by then.
Nope. I hired on in 1973 and didn’t get into the computer end until late 1977. The Selectric was originally designed to be a computer console printer since it could theoretically print 14.5 characters per second. It didn’t take long until it was obsolete for that function but was still used to print airline tickets and bank receipts. The people in the Field Engineering Division hated Selectrics since it was a pain in the ass to replace the cycle clutch and the drive belt. Those replacements were a lot easier on office Selectrics since you didn’t have to mess with all of the contacts as you did on the Selectric computer printers.