Being retired is  ...   GREAT!  To have time to do what I want, within reason, with no time pressures and to get PAID for doing nothing.  What, I ask you, could be better?

     The getting paid part is problematical.

I applied for Medicare, since I'm of sound mind and certainly old enough.  I was going to delay my Social Security benefits until my full "retirement" age of 66.  Just another year, so doable.  The difference is about $100 a month, so I was going to wait.

Now picture this: on a Monday I apply for Medicare benefits online.  When completed, it says I will need to take some documents to my local office for verification - my birth certificate and my naturalization papers.  It basically says the sooner the better because a delay will hold up the processing of my application.

Being retired, with time to call my own, I decide to go to my local (Hayward) Social Security office the next day.  Which I do.  I patiently wait for my turn, which didn't take as long as I'd expected.  The nice young man tells me I should have waited until someone called me (say WHAT!) because he can't yet pull up my application.  It hasn't hit their system yet.  BUT, he will take photo copies of my documents and log that he's verified they were original documents and merrily send the copies on their way to the office that will process my application.  *sigh*  He then asks me why I'm applying only for Medicare and not my Social Security benefits.  I explain that my SS "retirement" age is 66, so I'm waiting.  Seriously, people .. when you read all their literature it sounds like the best thing to do is wait!  He "looks it up" and tells me that by NOT taking the $16,000 I'd get this year -- at the rate of $100 extra per month, it will take me 13 years to make it up.  Well, I don't need a degree to do the math.  I'll take my money now, please.

He recommends that when I get home I go online and apply for my Social Security benefits.  Which I do.  It won't let me.  Tells me the information I'm providing is different from what they have on file.  So now the phone calls begin.  Have you tried calling SS?  You can eventually get through, but you have to jump through some hoops to get a living human being.  I call.  They tell me to be patient; it's because the Medicare application is pending and once that's completed I can then apply for SS.  Fine.

On Sunday I check online for the status of my Medicare application.  It says it's pending but I'll probably have to take some documentation (yep, you guessed it -- my birth certificate and naturalization papers) to my local office in SAN JOSE!  Another call to SS but I called the local Hayward office.  These numbers are now in my speed dial.  They explain the San Jose office processes the Medicare applications and all is good.  They still have the copies of my documents and will fax them once more to the San Jose office to make sure they get them.

On Monday I get a call from a very nice lady at the San Jose office.  She explains that my Medicare application is being processed but they will need to verify some documents (guess which ones).  I told her my sad story of jumping the gun and taking the documents to Hayward the day after I filled out the online application.  She checks a few "systems" and doesn't find the documents but says there's one more she can check but she doesn't have access to it at the moment.  I love computer systems.  Especially mega systems like the government uses.  Systems that go back so many years who knows if everything is up-to-date?  I'm guessing not.

She promises to get back with me on Friday - she's waiting a few days to make sure the documents hit one of her "systems".  In the meantime, she says, I may want to take my documents BACK to Hayward because her "system" shows me as a permanent resident, not a naturalized citizen.  Are you kidding me??  I've been naturalized since November of 1959!!  She explains the Immigration and Naturalization computer system isn't integrated with Social Security so they wouldn't have that information.  But, I explain, when I applied for my social security card way back when, surely I must have had to prove my citizenship or legal residency at that time, and since I was a CITIZEN, that should have gone on my record.  Nope, it's showing me as a permanent resident.  Might want to get that updated.

So I'll be making another call to my local SS office to see WHY the nice young gentleman who helped me didn't notice this one little glitch while I was sitting there in the office with my documents in hand.

And they want to nationalize health care.  OMG