Dear Mr. Berko: Can you help us? My wife and I need to purchase a drug plan but the Medicare website is so confusing that we just gave up in frustration. So we called two insurance agents in our area but neither would help us over the phone. They wanted us to come to their offices. But we were reluctant because we did not want to get high-pressured like we did before we moved here, which caused us to make a costly mistake. We're both retired, in fair health and have most of our marbles, but this Medicare website is the pits. Do you know an insurance professional who will answer questions over the phone and won't pressure us into something we don't understand? Why must the government make the Medicare drug thing so complicated? Please do not use our name. This is a small town and one of the agents is the friend of a friend who could embarrass us. — X.X., Frisco, Colo.

Dear X.X.: When I need a professional, I'm not keen on giving my business to a friend of a friend or a son of a friend. I want that salesperson to earn my confidence. Only then will I feel obligated to give him or her my business.

Meanwhile, don't feel badly about your inability to negotiate www.medicare.gov. I spent more than six hours on the website's Drug Plan Finder, which is supposed to help me compare drug plans based on premiums, deductibles, covered drugs and other factors. It was a downer; I lost six hours and my patience.

My biggest problem was in understanding the highfalutin, ridiculously technical and terribly opaque language. As if that were not challenging enough, I found myself clicking and clacking through so many pages of medical babble, legalese and technical jargon to make a decision that I sighed and gave up.

The following should answer your last question:

Several years ago a reader from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory told me about a new element called governmentium, atomic symbol Gv, which is the heaviest element known to mankind. Governmentium has one neutron, 62 assistant neutrons, 106 deputy assistant neutrons and 235 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 404, which is, coincidentally, the area code of Washington, D.C., multiplied by two.

Forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles, hold these 404 particles together that the Fermi folks call peons. Because has no electrons it is inert but it can be detected because its mass impedes every reaction with which it comes in contact. After significant study, the Fermi folks concluded that minute amounts of Gv have the ability to slow a reaction that would normally require a millisecond to complete to between 7.2 and 986.2 Earth days.

The half-life of Gv is three to seven years. It is, unlike other elements, unable to decay; rather it undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons and the deputy assistant neutrons exchange places. Unlike other elements, Gv's mass actually increases over time because each reorganization causes more morons to become neutrons and form isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads Fermi scientist to believe the governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical morass concentration. When catalyzed by taxes, borrowed money and excessive perk spending, governmentium becomes administratium, atomic symbol Ad, an element that radiates just as much energy as Gv because it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Meanwhile, I've given you the phone number of a Sandee Wilson, who owns The Aspen Insurance Agency in Colorado Springs, Colo. This lady, who is an insurance prodigy, knows more about health care, Medicare, long-term care and group insurance than anyone in the four-corners states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. She will teach you everything you need to know and has the patience of a saint. I told her that you might call and she will gladly help you make a comfortable and informed decision.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or e-mail him at [email protected]. To find out more about Malcolm Berko and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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