I rose early this morning, gathered up the relevant documents and strolled down to the local Social Security office, a quarter of an hour away from The Crumbling Manse™, to take issue with my Medicare Part B premium, which had risen steeply last year (to over $10K per annum for the two of us) because SSA was calculating our household income on the basis of the frau’s lavish cash settlement, following nine years in court, early in 2017. We filed paperwork appealing this decision. The wife received a response that said in effect, “You’re absolutely right, and we’re reducing your premium to $405 per quarter.” Me, I got a quarterly bill for $1300, which I thought rather hard cheese since, after all, I’m not the one who scored the big bucks.

Anyway, I joined the queue (sixth in what later became quite a long line of sullen proletarians) outside the building at 8:00, an hour before the office opened, and rather to my surprise was granted an audience with a functionary by 9:30. To my further surprise, because I’d been expecting no more than to receive instructions as to how I might proceed, just ten minutes of questions and answers and two minutes of keystrokes were required in order to settle matters to my satisfaction. I was advised that the reduced premium, due tomorrow, will be taken from the $2600 previously paid, and that a reimbursement of about $1800 will presently make its way to me via EFT, so woo and yay.

I had the sense that an element of what’s lately called “privilege” may have entered into this encounter, because I arrived white, well-dressed, articulate, courteous to the point of meekness, whereas many of my fellow supplicants carried, doubtless not without reason, an affect of prickly resentment. I learned decades ago, dealing with department secretaries in college, that a relaxed civility goes a long way with these people (also that even though the Mighty Dean is notionally the guy who has the power to bind and to loose, if you contrive sufficiently to ingratiate yourself* with the Department Secretary, you’re in like Flynn).

So: an annual savings of $3660, which I count not bad for a morning’s work.

(oh yes, ever so) cordially,

*I had a colleague in the old FCT&D days who cultivated the workforce at the lower end of the Flatline food chain, and this served us well: office supplies and equipment that were difficult to come by through normal procurement channels were made magically available to us off the books.