What's wrong with this picture?

I'll tell you what is wrong with it - the current temperature is LOWER than the reported daily low. Stupid weather reports... I froze my butt off walking from my building to the UC. And why was I headed there at 8 AM this morning? - to get information on my health benefits at the open enrollment fair. And that leads me to my next topic of discussion....

Medical insurance and how it rips you off!

I happened to notice on a recent mailing or two from my medical insurance that things were not being covered as they were being charged to my lovely $250 deductible. I had thought my deductible was met months ago when I had my toe surgery, but according to the recent charges it had not been. So I wondered if perhaps the annual deductible was scheduled for the SCHOOL year rather than the calendar year. I decided to be proactive and take the opportunity to speak face to face with a real person rather than dealing with automated phone menus and customer service reps that are consistently grouchy and short (who can blame them- that job must be awful). Anyway, turns out there was a computer or system glitch that reset deductibles... apparently it affected 1000s of claims. But did they tell any of us about it? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Sneaky bastards. I was about to pay a bill for a physician visit, after speaking to the rep this morning I was told not to pay it. She is going to investigate my account and help clear things up for me. So I'm glad I went.

I also found out my lovely $250 deductible is increasing to $350. Being a part of a slightly larger network is not worth that money, so I switched from PPO to HMO- that will become effective Jan 1st. With a $15 co-pay fee I would have to go to a doctor over 20 times before the money would add up to that nasty deductible alone (not including the 10% in network and 20% out of network I'd also have to pay.

Anyway enough about my medical insurance woes. In other news, today is Thursday which means tomorrow is FRIDAY! I can't wait for the weekend.