PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Beyond the headline, another way to put this is that I have been caught in a series of Catch 22 issues relative to my health insurance coverage.

So, call it an abyss, a series of Catch 22s, or a maze. Any image works.

Remember the movie, “Catch 22” and the book on which it was based, also with Catch 22 in the title? Those involved were caught in a seemingly never-ending loop from which they could never exit. New rules always caught them.

Alas, the movie and the book revolved around important and serious aspects of war where life or death issues were at stake.

My situation was “just” health care, though, I suppose, at the extreme, good health care can be a life or death issue.

Okay, here is what happened to me, not life or death, just frustrating:

• My wife and I are covered under the Public Retirement System (PERS). I and many other PERS health recipients were told recently we had to change insurance companies by the start of 2019 (so-called Medicare Advantage Plans that go along with basic Medicare coverage).
• We had to leave our current carrier, MODA, and had two options for a change. The easiest was to transfer to United.
• We chose that option and felt we would be good, but then I encountered Catch 22 #1. The Clinic where I am served in Salem, Oregon, The Doctors’ Clinic, had decided, for some unknown reason, not to accept United coverage, even though United in the largest health insurer in the country.
• So, on to Catch 22 #2. We had to transfer to the second option, Providence Health Plan, an insurer I knew well because I was the plan’s lobbyist for more than 20 years at the Capitol in Salem.
• We made the change and I designated the person who had been providing my primary health for almost a year, Troy Nies, a physician’s assistant at The Doctors’ Clinic.
• Then, Catch 22 #3. I was told that Troy would not be an acceptable listing as a primary care provider because he did have a medical doctoral degree. He is very qualified and provided great care for me for more than a year, but no matter. No medical degree.
• Then, Catch 22 #4. I was told that I needed to find the name of the doctor to whom Troy reported and list that person on my Providence insurance card. I did. His name is Dr. Jeffrey Brown.
• I passed the name on to Providence, but then Catch 22 #5.
• I was told it might not be possible to list Dr. Brown because he “was not taking new primary care patients.” I knew that, but needed “just” his name as a supervisor to Troy who would continue to provide my primary care.

As I write this, a solution still is pending, to put the best spin on the status.

To be fair, everyone who has tried to help me through this abyss has been courteous and thoughtful. No one has argued with me.

Fine, I say. But still no solution.

It is one thing for a person like me – one who, while not an expert in insurance, has fought health insurance public policy battles for many years – to encounter this abyss. I know just enough about health insurance to be dangerous.

Plus, at the risk of boasting, I am someone who does not sit back and waits for a solution to arrive. I go after it.

By contrast, I think of persons such as my late and dear mother. She would have been lost in this maze.

I hope all of this ends soon for me. I have no need for “the abyss,” “the Catch 22s, or “the maze.” Just solve the problem in a straight-forward, logical way.