Hodgepodge for 500, Alex

It's been a bit of a quiet month as far as posts go.  Oddly enough, this is more because there's been too much going on than that I've had nothing to write about.  So here is a brief rundown of this months news:

I'm about a week and a half into module 3.2 now.  It's been a bit of a strange experience, as we had a whole bunch of new students join the class.  So many, in fact, that there are now more new students than people I know.  Stranger still, most of the new students were put into the class directly from module 2.  It seems their teacher thought that they were all so good that they should skip 3.1 completely.  It's entirely possibly that the really are that good, but it does mean that the our teachers in 3.2 are having to repeat a lot of the stuff we learned over the past 6 weeks, and that does slow class down quite a bit.

In other news, I've had my first experience with Denmark's national healthcare system this month, and I have to say... so far, it's a huge improvement from my experience in the US.  I decided it was time to meet my doctor and ask a few medical questions that I've had on my mind for a while, so I called to make an appointment.  They assign a doctor to you when you get your CPR number, and that doctor's name and number are then printed on your "yellow card" (your CPR card).  I was a little worried at first, as the first time I called I got a message saying there were too many people waiting on the line and that I should try back later.  Next time, though, I got through no problem and made my appointment.  Once I got to the office that day, all I had to do was swipe my yellow card in their little machine, and my appointment time popped up on the screen, and I was officially checked in.  The doctor was very nice, and everything seems to have gone just fine.  Even better still, I didn't have to worry about if or when I would get a bill in the mail.  So far, so good.

And finally, my folks have been in town for the last week.  They fly out this morning, but we've spent the past week walking all around the city, seeing the sights.  When learning a new language, it helps to put things in perspective by being visited be people who don't know the language.  I was reassured by how often they would ask what sometime meant and I was able to give them an answer.

Then again, my mother was picking the words up quickly enough that we're fairly certain she'll know Danish before I do.

A Love Letter to Government Health Insurance

I don't plan to get too much into political issues very often on here, but since it's sort of the end of an era, I thought I'd share a little story about why profit-based health insurance just plain sucks.

My fiance recently added me to his company's insurance, which (I hope, at least) will be better than the coverage I've had since coming out to Boston.

Back in the Spring of 2009, I went to the doctor with a sore throat.  Turned out to be strep throat, and not a big deal at all.  But that wasn't all that the doctor found.

He also found a lump on the front of my neck that I never would have noticed.  Who knows how long it had been there.  After determining that it was definitely abnormal, he sent me to get a needle biopsy (and as someone who has a really serious phobia of needles... Ick..).

The biopsy determined that it was, in fact, a tumor on the right lobe of my thyroid.  Luckily, it seemed to be benign, but they wouldn't know for sure until they took it out.  And since they couldn't determine how long it had been there, they didn't know if it would continue to grow if we left it there, eventually restricting my breathing.

So, into surgery I went.

The surgery went well.  My surgeon, and all of the doctors and nurses involved were brilliant and everything was fine.

Until a month or two later, when I got a letter from my insurance company saying they would not be covering the surgery.

Because it wasn't "medically necessary."

Now, I'm sure there are some spin-doctors who could argue that breathing isn't "medically necessary."  No more medically necessary than being alive, I suppose.

Luckily, my surgeon wanted to get paid.  After I called him and explained the letter I'd gotten, he had me fax the info over to him, and I never heard another word about it from the insurance company.

I'm glad to be moving up to a slightly higher tier of health insurance for a little while...

But you know what I'm really looking forward to?  Government healthcare in Denmark.