A Pig In A Poke

     If there's any carrier offering "Medigap" insurance who will tell you what their various plans cost before they sit you down with a fast-talking sales type, I'd love to hear about it.

     These are plans that fill in what Medicare doesn't cover, pay all or some of the deductibles, etc. rather than the plans that glom onto your Social Security check and Medicare coverage, and allow a pittance after taking their cut; I'm sure they latter are not much worse than company-provided health plans -- except for the part where they don't leave you enough to live on.

     The problem is that just about the entire system is selling their stuff without admitting how much it will cost.  Medicare itself will provide a guess about how big a bite they'll take, and it's pretty grim, but the commercial companies are all smoke and mirrors.

     Nothing personal, guys, but if it was an honest product, you'd set it out in trays with price tags, and let people wander the aisles, picking 'em up and evaluating price and quality.  Instead, there's a lot of well-fronted bullshit about what all it'll save us hapless customers from, and to what extent, with tables and charts and illustrations -- and not word one about the monthly bill.

     Look, I'm old.  From here on, the ride goes downhill.  Something -- or a few things -- are going to incapacitate me to a lesser or greater extent; something's going to kill me, eventually.  My sincere hope is to use up nearly all my money by the day before that happens, and leave just enough for a tidy disposal of my remains.  And, you know, maybe stiff the health insurance company for that last monthly bill, just as a final token of the esteem in which I have held them.  Presumably by then, they'll have told me how much it will be.