The German Drama Llama: Health Insurance

German Drama Llama n.  1  Any form of unnecessary, stress-inducing, time-wasting, pig-headed, German bureaucracy;  2  A bitter, angry llama that hates Americans;  3  A new occasional feature of Tina's blog.

Last week, Al pointed out to me that the two of us have spent more time and energy this semester battling bureaucracy than doing school work. I like to blame the bureaucracy I butt heads with on the fact that I'm foreign, but as Al has also noted (being the more rational and better person that he is), he experiences just as much as I do.  It has nothing to do with being foreign, and everything to do with living here.  The fact that I'm EU actually saves me a shit ton of bureaucracy.  But, as we will see, it doesn't save me from...

THE GERMAN DRAMA LLAMA:  HEALTH INSURANCE

This story technically begins last October, in Sweden, where I fucked up my knee. Like, royally.  It was the only sour note of an otherwise brilliant weekend--Marina and I were walking along on our first evening, and all of a sudden KABOOM BITCH, EPIC KNEE PAIN.  I didn't step funny, or twist or slide or fall down--it was almost like my knee was hanging on my a thread and then decided to stab itself in the face.  Swedish paracetamol did nothing for me (not blaming it on the Swedishness, though), and upon returning to Germany, none of the medications in the American pharmacy I'd brought with me helped either.  What was stupid of me what I didn't immediately go to the doctor--but I HATE doctors, and I figured it would heal on its own.  It quickly became apparent to me that I wasn't dealing with your average knee injury, of the pulled-muscle variety--I couldn't bend my knee for three days and had to go up the stairs like an amputee on day one of physical therapy.  But after a week of feeling sorry for myself on the couch, my knee did start to get better.  Sort-of.  Weirdly, riding and biking didn't hurt, so I tried to bike instead of walk whenever possible.

After a few months, I found I was pretty much back to normal, as long as I didn't walk/jog for extended periods of time.  I considered going to a doctor in March when I briefly went back to the US, but decided against it because I didn't want X-Rays and shit taking away from my time with my friends, and who needs X-Rays anyway when your knee is getting better?  And it really did seem to be getting better.  Until we spent eight million hours walking around on our super fun Berlin day, and, although it was super fun, I aggravated whatever part of my knee still hadn't gotten over being aggravated in Stockholm.  My knee started going the wrong way on the healing scale, but since I wasn't working as an au pair, I couldn't lie on the couch and give myself time to (sort-of) recover.

Still, although annoying, it didn't truly become an issue until Claire and I started planning our around-Ireland bike adventure, when it occurred to me that a knee unhealed nine months later probably didn't bode well for such a trip.  I decided to start training to get my knee in shape, going on distance bike rides a few times a week, increasing the distance each time and giving myself a few days in between to rest up. This worked really well until earlier this week, when Al and I had to go on a distance bike ride to find a barn (that story coming shortly).  It was my fault--I had done a distance bike ride the day before, I knew I wasn't in shape to do another one, but I really wanted to find the barn.  So I bit my teeth, told myself to rub dirt in it, and figured I'd be fine.  Bad plan, and I knew it.  Force of will, though it has been known to cure cancer, does FUCK-ALL for knee injuries.

A few days later, I finally admitted to myself what I'd known for months--my knee was a real problem, and I needed to be seen by a doctor, like, yesterday.  Enter Problem Number One: no German health insurance.

But wait a second--don't students have to be insured in Germany?


Yes, well.  Funny story, that is.  Remember way back in March when I was freaking out at the K-2 of bureaucracy I had to scale to get myself matriculated?  I ran into the problem of required insurance then--couldn't afford student health insurance (100 dollars a month), and couldn't get myself freed from the required insurance because the German company wanted American documents exclusively in my name.  So I went to a different insurance company, where a lady there solved my problem in five seconds flat.  As I understood it, I could come back to the insurance company if and when I needed it, slash if I suddenly came into 100 bucks a month I had no better use for than to hand over to the German health system.  Fabulous.


Remembering this, I emailed my mom and was like, "Hello dearest mother whom I love with all my heart, I realize I'm 24 and should no longer be on your dime, but the thing is (remember that I love you), the German government has spent the last four months rejecting me from every aid, funding, and scholarship application I've sent out, I'm as poor as Rick Santorum's moral fiber, and my knee hurts like a bitch.  But through all of this, I have never wavered in my love for you.  Health insurance costs?  You're the only mother I've ever loved."  My mom's email back was something all the lines of, "You're an idiot, go buy health insurance and I'll cover it."  She is my mom, you can't have her.

I have never, never, NEVER in my life been so excited over health insurance.  The idea that soon I would be insured, soon I could go to a doctor and get my knee fixed--despite Al's warnings that Germany is a bitch, I spent most of yesterday doing excited dances and singing health insurance happy songs.  My knee would get fixed!  I could stop worrying about financially burdening my family unnecessarily if I uninsuredly fell into a well, got hit by a moped, or otherwise died!  HOORAY ISN'T IT EXCITING!  I was like a child on Christmas morning, if that child was a freak and wished for a trip to the local hospital.  Freak.

When the insurance place opened, Al I and I bounded in the door like chipmunks. Actually, I bounded liked a chipmunk (bad knee be damned), and he walked.  But I did enough bounding for both of us.

"Hello!" I chirped to the lady at the front desk.  "I would like some health insurance please!  And in case you couldn't tell, I am SO EXCITED ABOUT IT."  The lady was all, "...I would like your name, and then for you to sit down.  Please and thank you." This I did for thirty seconds, until Mr. Health Insurance Guy came to collect us.

Mr. Health Insurance Guy was quickly baffled by my story, and didn't understand how I was able to go through an entire semester without being insured.  Since it was his colleague that gave me the original get-out-of-jail-free document, he went and sat by her desk for a long time, until he realized she wasn't getting off the phone and his customers were about thirty seconds away from opening up his drawers and playing games with what they found inside.  He came back, and laid it for me straight: basically, his colleague had fucked up giving me the paper.  I should never have been allowed to get it.  If I wanted health insurance, being a student, I would have to get on the student policy.  However, you can't jump on the bandwagon when you feel like it--if I wanted a prime seat on this baby, I would have to back pay the four months to the beginning of the semester, to the tune of 400 dollars.  Which I do not have.

German Drama Llama says...

In his defense, Mr. HIG really was a nice guy, and he really did try to help.  The only problem was he didn't.  When we left, Al shook his hand, but I couldn't bring myself to look at him, because I knew if I did, I would to slap him. Or cry.  Possibly both.


I didn't actually start crying until I got back to my bike, and I didn't start throwing things until we walked in the door to my apartment.  At which point I threw a lot of things. And screamed.  Al immediately mobilized his entire family to start calling people and getting this shitstorm de-shitstormed, but I wasn't emotionally there yet.  I still couldn't be trusted to touch anything without slamming it against the wall.  He headed over to the university to talk to the student insurance people there and get a second opinion, leaving me to my throwing.  Eventually, being a Portuguese Godzilla coked out on months of bureaucratic frustration and stress got boring, at which point I contented myself with researching master's programs in the UK to transfer to.  Sorry. Programmes.

Al came back with a couple pieces of information:
1)  The original lady fucked up, not me.  She gave me wrong information and a piece of paper I wasn't allowed to have.
2)  That paper should have been denied to me on basis of having American insurance. Only people with EU insurance can get that paper to begin with.
3)  Let's be honest, as crappy as the American health care system is, it's got nothing on the level of fuckery embodied by its Portuguese counterpart.  So that's out.
And 4) no matter which insurance company I go to, I have to back pay to the last four months.

Shortly thereafter, Al's mom called with the same information.  A few moments later, his dad buzzed in to let us know he's personally calling the insurance company to ream them out.  I'm happy I'm not the insurance company, Al's dad is a pretty important guy, and definitely not one you want to get a phone call from about how you're a tool.

The moral of the story is, Germany and God actively hate me.  Frankly, I'm tired.  I'm tired of constantly going up against the German system and losing.  I'm tired of getting fucked over every which way I turn.  I'm tired of getting every single scholarship, aid, and funding application getting sent back to me with a polite "Go die in a corner" letter. I'm over it.  I'm going back to the States for three weeks over Christmas to visit my family.  If my situation hasn't changed before then, we will have problems.  And when I say "we," I mean my parents, because they might be back to having a daughter in the house.