Me with my noticeably shorter, yet also noticeably more educated language teacher.

Marie and I were finishing up class on Monday when she asked if I wouldn’t mind looking at something for her. Sure, I said, figuring that it was a government-type document that required some sort of clarification that could only be sanity-checked by an American. Boy was I correct. No wait- I was right, but I was also dead wrong. She opened her bag and proceeded to pull out an envelope containing three pieces of paper with the words “Plan A” “Plan B” and “Plan C” written on each one, and the word “Aetna” innocently residing in the top right-hand corner of each.  Oh mon dieu, I thought to myself, I am waaaay out of my league…

Marie is Senegalese and has been living in this country for about five years. She’s a few courses short of a doctorate, consults for the World Bank and also happens to speak four languages. Suffice it to say that she’s pretty smart, and does this teaching thing as a side job. I, on the other hand joined the Navy because I was too lazy to look for a job, and was also attracted to the idea of never ever flirting with the sinister processes of the American healthcare system. If I ever have a problem, all I do is show my plastic ID card and instantly get all the medical attention and 500mg Motrin pills that I could ever want. I never really think of healthcare as a privilege, or even as something that requires more than me writing “U.S. Navy” when a form asks me to list my provider.

Unfortunately for Marie and the rest of the honest working folks out there, the same luxury isn’t an option. Despite her impressive CV, Marie was unable to préciser which medical plan would work best for her family, and for some bizarre reason (I call it logic) she thought that her American student might have a better clue than her.

[Cue laughter here]

I think that Americans can all agree that it doesn’t matter how much formal education one receives- it does nothing to facilitate the understanding of our healthcare system. As soon as I understood what Marie was asking me to do, I told her that even with my somewhat useful mother tongue, there was no guarantee that I could understand the language of Aetna.

I wish I’d made copies of each plan so that I could also torture you, because determining the merits of one plan over another was simply mind-boggling. Still, I wanted to help Marie and pored over the verbiage, even explaining (in French) what deductibles and co-payments meant. The entire exchange reminded me of a deployment where I was assuming an underway watch from our security officer, and she was doing her best to explain to me (the intel officer) the exact details of a Coast Guard cutter’s engineering plant casualty. Halfway through her explanation, we both looked at each other and started laughing- neither of us had any background, nor any clue about what we were really talking about. For us, gas goes into the tank, and the propeller magically starts turning. That’s kind of how I look at healthcare too. 

I think in the end that we agreed on Plan B. I can’t even remember why. Even though my teacher is a good Muslim, I nicely asked her to be so kind as to accompany the next form she brings in with an economy-sized bottle of whiskey.

I learned in school today that what most people get with their healthcare coverage really is a roll of the dice.