American "health care system"

C., another now-adult former client, calls in crisis mode. She has been locked in a custody battle with her abusive trans. ex. who keeps calling child welfare as a way to harass her. She had been prevailing, but something changed. "He has temporary custody, and I have supervised visitation," she tells me, sobbing. "Am I a bad mother?" "No," I say, "you're a mother in a very challenging situation." She is dealing with poverty, her own medical issues, a special needs child and this abusive ex. "What should I do?" she asks. "What does your lawyer say?" "I don't have a lawyer!" It turns out that the domestic violence org that was supposed to provide her with legal services has dropped the ball. I look up another org in her area, send her the info. "The child welfare guy was actually nice," she says. "He said it's just temporary, that I am burned out." "Maybe you can take this time on your own to get some rest," I say, knowing that she has been pushing herself hard. "That's what he said," she says and I can hear a little bit of hope coming back into her voice. "I can rest and get the house in order." When I get off the phone, I find Misty scowling at my medical paperwork. "The insurance didn't cover this visit at all," she says. It was in Mid-Jan. and I just switched insurance, so I tell her they probably billed the wrong insurance. She calls them to tell them to bill the other insurance and winds up even more confused. "Your new insurance didn't start until Feb., so why didnt the old insurance cover it?" Looking closer, we can see they didnt cover anything in January. I pull up the email I sent them to cancel, and it clearly says to cancel at the end of January. Misty logs in to the old insurance, and we see that it ended at the end of 2025 but we don't know why. She calls, gets put on hold forever, and then they tell her they received the Jan. payment late so they cut me off. She asks if they can reinstate January now that they have the payment, and she transfers us to the NY State of Health because its an affordable care act plan. More hold music. The woman who answers pulls up my info and is also confused. "We have you down as still enrolled with Emblem," she says. "They never notified us that they were terminating your insurance.". The problem is not on their end so she can't fix it. She gives us a reference number and I tell Misty we can pick this up tomorrow since she looks frazzled. I hop on a call with a reporter who wants to talk about the flood of young people who we're seeing come to NYC because of anti-LGBT laws in their home states and what happens to them when they get here. When I get done with that, I notice Misty looking satisfied, like a cat that has caught a mouse. "You said to do it tomorrow but I called Emblem and gave them the reference number and they are sending it to a supervisor to fix," she says. This is the "health care system" in America. I think about all the people who would have gotten lost in this maze of bureaucracy and bullshit, and then have to reign in my anger before I see the next client. After the last client, I dash out the door to physical therapy. Today is a different therapist, a delicate looking woman who turns out to have intensely strong hands which she presses into the muscles of my screwed up shoulders until it hurts so much that she has to remind me to breathe. She takes me through a series of exercises like pulling my shoulder blades down and together where our i wings would be. While I do this, a young male therapist is working with an older woman nearby. She is talking to him nonstop about all kinds of things. He breaks in to ask her what she wants, so he can write it on her PT plan. "To be rich," she says. "I used to want to be famous but now I just want to win the lottery for at least a million dollars. Later on, she makes a remark about him having a bay and he asks her what she means. "She could be pregnant now," she says. "You have to be ready for kids," he says, "everything is so expensive these days." My therapist and I are both trying not to laugh at this. I focus on pressoing a squishy yellow ball into the wall with my elbow. The therapist must have been reading my records, because at the end, when we are among the last few people left, she says, "you do very important work." I tell her I have to do work that matters, that even though sometimes I wish I could walk out the door without thinking about it, like I did when I worked at the garment factory, I can't stand that kind of work. "I wish we could solve all the problems in the world," she says, wistfully. Snapping out of it, she tells me to ice when I get home. "I'm staying at a friend's and I don't know how the ice maker works," I tell her, laughing. He explained it to me, but there's some kind of trick to it that I don't remember.