Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

It may seem a detour from the walk across Illinois, but here we are in a beautiful hotel, right on the beach in Myrtle Beach. Though it got down to about 50 degrees last night, the weather has been really nice. Unfortunately I’m nursing the ravages of a nearly spent sinus infection, namely a sore larynx and crud in my lungs. Fortunately I’m among dear friends (Mary’s family), and competent medical help is just a few blocks away. Yesterday I saw a doctor at a local hospital and came away with a prescription for an antibiotic and some cough medicine.

This was my first experience getting medical care under Medicare, and, despite the fact that I finally located my Medicare card in a dim recess of my new wallet, the hospital could not get the system to accept Medicare payment on my behalf. My insurance-biller wife tells me that there is nothing to worry about, and that it is quite normal for new Medicare insurees to experience difficulties of this kind. Fortunately more underfunded government health care plans are on their way to help me out with the ones I already have. Oh, yes. Some of health care places we called accept Tricare Standard insurance, but not Tricare for Life insurance. Go figure!

Also, we had some difficulty at the pharmacy because Tricare insurance insisted that we bill my primary insurance first: Tricare is my primary insurance for medications. My sagacious wife got us through that process somehow, but Monday we have to call the hospital administrator to determine what is up with my supposed ineligibility for Medicare.

Maybe I should have expected some difficulty of this sort. When I told the Social Security Administration that I was going to retire on the last day in April, the representative said that I would have to document all of my military service so the Social Security Administration could credit me with earned quarters of income. Then, when I went to get my permanent retiree ID card, I learned that I had to document to the Department of Defense the fact that the Social Security Administration had deemed me eligible for Medicare. Apparently those two branches of government are not on speaking terms. All of the documentation I provided to the two agencies has not gotten me formally qualified for Medicare and Tricare for Life insurance coverage, so far as I can tell.

I really don’t want this to be political, and I fear my tone is already so, but for what other employment does an individual have to document retirement points (I lie not, folks: the military, particularly on the Guard and Reserve side, is actually clueless about how many retirement points a retiree has if a unit administrator has failed to properly submit documentation of those points). Final accounting depends on the retiree’s documentation to the proper authorities of time served, and that documentation can be very complicated.

More recently the DOD has begun accepting pay documentation from a bank or other financial institution, but such evidence of service is very likely to have to be accompanied by orders (not valid by themselves, because they could have been revoked before the service member actually served the active duty time they refer to). Apparently the retirement system and the Defense Financing and Accounting System aren’t on speaking terms either. Out of fairness to our nation’s defenders, I’d say we ought to expect the military to do the accounting rather than the individual.

Too bad that I’m spending my vacation complaining. Shame on me. It’s actually a wonderful vacation, and I’m enjoying it very much. Today we celebrated Mother’s day with Mary’s mom, and I can see the helium-filled and festive balloon across the room as I type this.

An old friend once said that an acquaintance had told him to cheer up, because things could get worse. He said he took that advice, and he cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.

Sincerely,

Rob