True Life: I'm a College Graduate

Mondays are a dreaded day for all, and I am no exception. It is one of two days that I work, Friday being the other, and often I don’t return home till past 9 p.m. after the Fraternity’s meeting. Today, I trudged through the door as the night creeped past 10, but was cheerily greeted by my roommate, Muffin, who you may remember from my first Spring Break story.

Muffin graduated last spring with a business degree, and after traveling in Europe for the summer, he returned home without a job or a place to rest his head. He secured a position at a software company he interned at while in school, but only through December, and because one of my roommates is abroad for the semester, we invited him to live with us.

Fresh out of meeting, I regaled a tale to Muffin from another epic Away Weekend (stories forthcoming) in which one of our younger brothers sustained a hand injury that required medical attention. Baby D was coaxed to jump into the rapidly accumulating pile of trash that had amassed over three days worth of partying, and after emerging from his booze-induced dive, he noticed he had sliced his hand open. This set the decision makers into a fit of panic as they quickly tried to think up a cover story and another tried to find a vet to stitch up his hand. Undaunted, Baby D sauntered into the emergency room, and offered this beauty for how his hand became mangled.

“Well, I was busy raging on top of the counter, and I remember crashing into a pile of trash, and when I got up, my hand looked like this,” he stated to the attendant. Honesty is the best policy.

After a hearty chuckle, Muffin and I began to speculate how Baby D’s parents took the news of an emergency room trip. My parents recently received a bill for $452 for my trip a few weeks back, all but $75 of which was covered by our insurance. Our conversation then turned to our president-elect, and his plans for universal health care. Muffin let on that he was paying his own medical insurance because he is hired through a temp agency, and not the company he works for. He pays $20 a week for it, and the maximum the company will pay out for medical attention he receives is $2000 a year. He then launched into a story highlighting the difficulties he has had with the company just to receive payment for medical attention.

A few weeks back, he decided to make a doctor’s appointment because he has had trouble sleeping and has noticed that since returning from Europe, his memory has been in decline. It took him two hours in the doctor’s waiting room merely to ensure his insurance would cover the visit. After securing that, along with a $15 copay, the doctor prescribed an anxiety medication, blood work and an MRI. But his headache did not end there. He learned the blood work would cost $800, nearly half of his yearly allowance, and an MRI would use up all $2000 plus an extra $450 out of pocket. He declined the MRI, but through one of his brother’s clients, he secured an appointment for blood work under the table at a lab an hour’s drive away, which still cost him $250 out of pocket. To fill the prescription, he went to the pharmacist, but was told there was a problem and was forced to call the insurance company. He was then given a list of 20 numbers, which he jotted down on a napkin in the middle of CVS in order to receive the discount, but after the pharmacist entered them into the computer, it still didn’t work. He tried again, another 20 numbers, and still no luck. He finally gave up only to be told the prescription was a mere $8, and which has proved to be worthless, because they merely put him to sleep.

My father’s a federal employee, so I’ve never worried a day in my life about medical insurance, nor did I have any idea how unbelievably complicated and unhelpful it can be. Muffin had to take off work, costing him money, drive all around the state in order to receive affordable help and still didn’t get all the services the doctor prescribed for him. And the kicker is that the insurance company does not pay for the services; instead, he pays out of pocket, sends the company a receipt, and they then decide how much to reimburse him. Health insurance is an unbelievable safety net; without it, that beer can I tossed would have cost me 500 bucks, but not one that everyone enjoys. And that may be the worst part; my roommate is not alone, he is just another sad story in a sea of economic turmoil.