I made it to Medicare!

©2015 Lydia Hinshaw

At last!

 WEST GLACIER, MT -- Today, Sept. 1, 2015, is a major milestone for me.

 No more health insurance premiums that consume up to 40 percent of my income.  No more putting off going to the doctor because of the co-payment.

 In effect, I have just gotten a bigger raise than I ever got as a full-time employee with a pretty good job.

 When I retired from my real job 10 years ago, the scariest thing about my future was the ten years I would have to buy my own health insurance.  It's expensive, and it gets more expensive every year.  I don't even want to think about how much I've spent on it in the past 10 years.
 Since 2005 I've cobbled together a small income by working full-time summer jobs and part-time winter ones.  There's also my tiny pension from my 31 years working for the same employer.  In late 2012, I began to collect Social Security.

 With Prince Charming contributing more than his share, and going on Social Security and Medicare himself nearly eight years ahead of me, we've been able to do many of the things we can still enjoy at our advanced ages.
 But there was always that huge chunk of cash coming out of my bank account every month.  Some years, it canceled out almost all of my pension deposit that had arrived a couple of days earlier.  If it had been a mortgage payment, I could never have qualified for it.
 No more.
 Today is a very good day.