Open Enrollment for Health Care

Text by Rick McVicar

I dial the number for the Turkey Insurance Company/To make sure my doctors are covered/ When I am deathly ill or injured. 

Yes, Richard, I will be glad to help./ Just need your number of membership/ In the Turkey Insurance Company./ Here’s the number on my letter/ From your fine Turkey Insurance Company.

A letter and twelve digits, / Can you repeat that back for me? There is no such number on our record / At the Turkey Insurance Company. 

Are you sure you are a member/ In our exclusive Turkey HMO, PPO, or Heidi Ho? / I can read you the letter I received from/ Your wonderful Turkey Insurance Company.

There are five more numbers the letter gives me/ To make sure I am in your Turkey Company./ I will let you talk to an agent/ in our Stellar Turkey Insurance Company./

Click. The music begins for five, ten,/ Fifteen minutes, the fun never ends./ After another 45 minutes go by, / An agent picks up on the line./ What is the number for your membership/ In our elite Turkey Insurance Company?

Here I have correspondence with a letter and twelve digits/ From your highly regarded Turkey Insurance  Company./ Sorry, we do not have that number on file./ I will let you speak to my supervisor/ At the super delicious Turkey Insurance Company. 

Click. The music begins, screwing its way into my brain./ I begin to forget why I called the despicable Turkey Insurance Company. 

 I wait a week and call them back/ To cancel my Turkey Insurance Company policy./ A woman answers the call from her home/ With a rooster in the background singing, “Cock-a-doodle-do.”

  This poem is based on a true story about choosing a Medicare Advantage Plan. I've been covered in the past but found a new company that appeared to have better benefits. After signing up for the new plan, I figured I better make sure my doctors were covered. Unfortunately, I had a horrible experience calling the new company. I decided to cancel out of the new plan and go back to my old one. 

  And yes, the woman I spoke with had a neighbor's rooster crowing loudly in the background. The one piece of fiction in the poem is the name of the company. I am choosing not to divulge the real name.

                                         Click on image to go to YouTube music video.