Square peg in the round hole

I've been busy, perhaps more so than usual, so I've not done much blogging. Today's events, however, were too good to pass up. Have you noticed how writing (and reading) about something bad or negative is a lot more fun than writing about sunny days and happiness? Well, that's the way it is and I am using this post to vent my frustrations.

First I need to commend my family for yesterday's major milestone. We've just passed the two year mark of our move and have fully and I believe, successfully integrated into the local life (last major task completed this morning, I'll explain). Finally. It's been a long and at times painful and exceedingly frustrating process. The usual daily grind stuff, I suppose.

This morning I finally got my health insurance. Surprised why it took so long you might ask? Because I don't fit the bill, as usual. That's the way it has to be I suppose. If things came to us too easily, we just wouldn't appreciate it one bit. Right? I don't know. It's hard to be constantly patient without getting stressed and frustrated. Why did it have to take 7 years for me just to get the green card after I got married? It's paperwork people. Bureaucracy at it's best. Less than intelligent rules enforced by even less than intelligent people. So here's the skinny on the latest...

Kids were eligible for health insurance right away because they were minors and Croatian citizens. That was my primary concern and I was glad when that was finished. Chris couldn't get insurance until he had temporary residency which, as you might recall, wasn't that easy to come by. The culmination of it was his three month departure back to the US so we could follow the law and get it done right. Made it through that and many other stumbling blocks in between (read old posts), and he was granted health insurance as well. We paid it on a monthly basis until he got a job in April. Now he's covered through his employment. And that leaves me. Saving the best for last.

Well, any way you looked at it I just didn't and couldn't fit into anything that they had on paper there. I didn't have a job in Croatia to get insurance through work; wasn't a student; wasn't a minor; wasn't self employed (in Croatia); didn't have an employed husband with permanent residence (else I could get insurance through him); couldn't go through unemployment office because I didn't report my status change (loss of job, finishing school, etc.) within allotted 30 days; didn't believe in bribing someone to fix it up for me... I've only missed that deadline by some 6,205 days. Couldn't they just look the other way? I've spent two years trying out all of these options. Certainly it could have been done faster, but this was being worked on along with many other important things like kid's health, immigration applications, home ownership paperwork (a nightmare in it's own right), work (wow, got to pay bills and eat)... Still, luck stayed on my side and despite it all I didn't get sick for two years. That's a miracle in itself, isn't it? I did try to get "fake" employment but that soured as well. At a suggestion of the health insurance office worker, I asked a friend to hire me for 2-3 weeks and then I could quit so I'd have paperwork that I could take to the unemployment office within 30 days of quitting date and qualify for insurance that way. The HR person that was supposed to do that for me, clearly never seen someone with a strange situation like mine (I am one in a billion you know) persisted to convince me of all sorts of things that I've already tried and checked on so I gave up on it. Not worth getting her in trouble with her boss, a friend of mine that was to do me a favor. Besides, she also insisted that she needed a certificate where my insurance was cancelled (something like certificate of creditable coverage in the US) which clearly I don't have and I should have obtained, I suppose, some 17 years ago.

My last and only option, I found out, was to pay one full year of insurance (in arrears) so I could start paying every month for the privilege of using the health insurance. I didn't do that right away because I've hoped to find some other solution as some of the other options looked promising. It wouldn't make sense to just throw the money away. I was determined to try out other things first. I probably did it for the same reason why I refused to hire an expensive attorney to get my green card done (aside from an application fee, a free process) so it took 7 years instead of maybe two. Or the same reason why I refused to hire a real estate agent because it defies common sense to pay someone $12,000 for something that I can do on my own. You should have seen how mad I was when we had to write a big check to the buyer's real estate agent (buying and selling real estate agents split the 3% fee) who was so incompetent that if we left it up to him the closing wouldn't even happen. I collected the right paperwork and brought it over to the closing. We negotiated over the phone until I just plain told him no on whatever he was trying to scheme up. After a while he got either scared or embarrassed to call and all future communications were strictly e-mail. He suckered some poor couple to get the house that was way beyond their means and ended up rolling up all of the closing costs into the loan. What do you think are the chances that they are still in that home? I digress...

So, mad at the system I went to the health insurance office again this morning. Been there so many times that they recognize my face already. Told them what I wanted to do and their suggestion was to wait until I need to go to the hospital or something and then do this paperwork. I could just see myself on the stretcher signing the paper so I could get medical care. I turned the paperwork in to one of the clerks. He processed it and told me I had to go make the payment at the post office. Post offices function as mini banks here so one can pay bills and make other miscellaneous payments there. There are no checks in Croatia (only direct pay or electronic payment). He didn't happen to have a spare payment slip there so he gave me a copy of someone else's with, of all things, their name, home address, date of birth and social security number on it. Oh, lucky day. I shoud have ran with it and gone straight to some steel-the-identity guru so I could get some illegal cash, recover the money I was paying them and go on a shopping spree of a lifetime. So I took the slip, and used it as an example to fill mine out, paid the bill and the unavoidable (excessively high) processing fee for the privilege of paying at the post office, and then I return back to the health insurance office. So I enter back into the smoke filled (yes, you read it right) office to find that the clerk wasn't there so I inquired about him. Then I found out that he went on a smoke break (did you notice the smoke-filled statement earlier clearly implying that they smoke in the office so why even leave when you need a smoke?). So the other clerk goes out for a walk to look for him and comes back because she couldn't find him. Then it occurred to her that she could complete this on his behalf. She went over to his desk, office covered with privacy information (HIPAA alert!), and all she had to do is give me the completed paperwork and take the payment receipt from me. I did comment and said that he shouldn't have given me someone else's name, address, SSN... to which she just smiled and said that there's nothing they could do since they don't have any prefilled payment slips there. I did make the painfully obvious suggestion of just writing the account number and other applicable information on a piece of paper to which she just shrugged and said that they don't think anyone will abuse that information, that they, get this one -- trust people.

Pause to ponder all of this. It's like a scene from a 50s eastern-block-country movie. All we needed was to make it black and white, and remove women from the scene because they should have been home taking care of babies anyway. Except the reality is that it's 60 years later and just down the street are state of the art buildings filled with latest technology. Except the modern age hasn't quite caught up with majority I suppose.

Deep breath...

Now you know why I felt compelled to sit down right after I got back, hair still smoke-scented, fists still clenched. Should I ever get into a place of any kind of power only a few scenarios are possible: I would quit over frustration that I couldn't get things done; I would be universally hated for stepping on everyone's toes or I would be assassinated because I wouldn't let the lazy and corrupt get away with things.

So, how have all my faithful blog followers been? I know, I know, everyone is worried about the financial situation. Trust me, I make sure to read upon it every day. My money is in the bank down the street from you, you know, so I very much care to see how this unravels. Plus, the inflation and economic trouble is present here too. I am still waiting for them to lower the gas price from $7.06 per gallon. Didn't they notice that oil prices went down?

Weather

Weather this week has been beautiful, mid 80s and sunny. Friday to Saturday it'll suddenly drop by over 20 degrees to 62. By Monday it'll be in mid to high 50s, just perfect for us to pull the jackets out and turn the heating on. But, just to keep it interesting, by following Saturday it'll be back to 70s. Welcome to Croatian weather.