Learning Not to be a Drama Queen

It's been a few months since I've posted. Lots has happened, but well, I just have to swallow the fact that those two months of my life won't be documented. So what event occurred to get me over the hump to write again? It was a potentially expensive health care issue that was resolved. Let me explain.....

In speaking with the director of the program, I learned that my health insurance covered me from the time I got on a plane and ended when I returned to the United States. My health insurance through HRS ends on 8/31/09. I would rejoin the HRS plan upon my return on 9/1/10. Because my contract and apartment rights end at the end of June 2010, I had a two month gap where I was going to be uninsured.

I assumed that I could buy two months of COBRA and the issue solved. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that to get COBRA it has to start immediately after the end of the policy and must be continuous. Therefore, for me to be insured for July and August of 2010, I would need to start paying for COBRA in September 2009. The monthly COBRA payment is estimated to be between $450 and $500 per month just for a single person with no dependents like me.

So, I wrote to SYA to see what they could do. My pie in the sky proposal was that I forgo their insurance and see if they would be willing to pay my COBRA. What came back was an even more ideal solution. It turns out that SYA's policy allows for 60 days of the plan (it's some expat American overseas plan) to be used while on United States soil. So SYA will, instead of starting my insurance on July 1, 2009, will start the insurance on September 1, 2009, which is the day after I end my HRS insurance. The SYA insurance will end on August 31st, 2010 and I begin HRS insurance again on September 1, 2010.

WHEW. That's money in the bank! Lessons learned? First, now that I was faced with potentially having to scramble for health insurance, I can understand how crazy our patchwork system is. How can it be so hard to get insurance. It should be a fundamental human right to have health care. The second thing I acutally didn't learn, it was more a case of keeping calm and having faith that things would work out. I didn't let myself play through all the worst case scenarios and I didn't start forking over the money. And just as I have experienced in the past, things figure themselves out without me having to expend emotional energy. I guess that's having life experience.