I’m not sure if I’m ready for this

I had lunch with my mom today. She’s going to be 65 in March, and she asked me to help her sort through the mass of information she’s gotten about Medicare, and Medicare supplemental plans, and Medicare subscription plans. First off, I had no idea how complicated all this crap is. Regular Medicare, called Part A, only covers hospitalizations, and it only covers 80% of the costs of what they allow for hospitalizations. Part B, which you have to pay extra for, covers 80% of the cost of your doctor’s visits, and some of the costs that Part A won’t cover. There are at least 11 different Part B plans, which have a variety of different options. You’d be amazed at how much detail they go into about what they will and will not cover. They are all pretty expensive. Oh, and they don’t include prescription drugs. The prescription drug plans are yet another additional cost.

Suddenly I find myself believing in universal healthcare even more firmly than I did before. There’s no reason why healthcare should be so complicated, and yet so inadequate at the same time. But all that aside, what I’m really not ready for is my mom getting older. Talking through the various insurance options and ways that she could get sick over the course of the rest her life that she might want to have covered was just plain unnerving. Listening to her worry about where her money is going to come from when she retires brings up all sorts of potential problems that I am not interested in facing right now. I don’t want my parents to get sick. I don’t even want to think about my parents getting sick. And then there’s the notion that someday they could be dependent on me. I’m not even completely used to being dependent on me yet, and besides that’s not where they are supposed to fit in the hierarchy of our lives. Plus, my parents are just plain difficult people sometimes, so whatever we encounter as they get older, I can guarantee they won’t make it easy. John’s parents can be, well, individuals, so I’m sure they won’t be a picnic either. In fact, they are older then my parents, so we may well get to go through all of this with them first.

So, of course John and I are willing to take in any and all of our parents if the time comes where that is the right thing to do. Sure, we make jokes about stashing them in shed. Or about how we’ll move to a bigger place where they can have their own little apartment over the garage, but we’ll put in one of those invisible fences that shocks them if they try to wander over to our place. Bzzt…ow! No really, we wouldn’t do that. We kid because we love. And maybe just a little so we can put off acknowledging that we can’t stop our parents from getting older, and at some point, getting sick and dying.

Nope, I’m definitely not ready for this yet.