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Trevor Young came from a nice maggot-farming Mormon family just north of Pocatello.. Blonde, Trevor was quite the handsome country boy, when he headed off to UCLA to study Agriculture. In his pocket was his “trick” for impressing young women, a sample from his Idaho farm. “Maybe I’ll meet somebody to marry up with,” he told his mother, a stout matronly sort. “Are you bringing your little box?” she asked sweetly. “Of course,” Trevor said, “It’s the best lure I got.” His mother nodded. “If she doesn’t like your little box, then she’s not good enough for my boy,” Trevor’s mother opined. She and her husband Hyrum had also gifted their son with health insurance coverage purchased from a California Health Insurance agent. “We won’t worry so much,” she told her ninth-born.

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Once on campus, Trevor settled in. One of his roommates noticed the little box. Left unattended on a bureau top, it was oval, smelled of chocolate on the outside, and was purple. “What’s in this Farm Boy?” the guy asked. Max Weinart was a junior majoring in International Finance from the Bronx and guessed precious jewelry, like a ring, was in it.

“It’s for a special girl,” Trevor explained, implying to Max that the contents were none of his business. Max nodded, assuming he’d guessed right.

A few weeks later at a formal soiree, Trevor met that “special” girl, Karen. Big-boned but pretty, she hailed from Jersey. She later regretted popping the question. “What kind of farming does your family do?”

“Wait, I’ll show you.” Out came the box, the one that had so intrigued the girls from north of Pocatello. Karen gasped at the contents in horror, screamed and reflexively punched, smacking Trevor in the jaw and knocking him cold.

While recovering in the UCLA Medical Center, with his jaw expertly wired, Trevor spoke through clenched teeth. “I got insurance,” he told Max, who’d come to visit.

“I heard what happened,” he said, “But why did you show that girl a box of dead maggots?”

“It was my fault,” Trevor admitted, “the live ones are so pink and beautiful.  I should have figured that when I’m home, they keep better.”

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Health Insurance Helps in Car Crash

Leonard Durban was proud of his brand new Saab. It was chartreuse with a gold trim. It had no flaw or blemish. While shopping one fine sunny day, he’d purchased his groceries two bags full and was preparing to exit the parking lot of Nice Foods where natural foods were sold.

His Saab was stopped. But another car, a 1965 Studebaker which was the color of phlegm had approached from within the parking lot as Leonard looked on with horror. The driver, one Agnes L. Penta, an irascible 94-year-old, was practiced in cutting corners as she approached stop signs. She’d been driving this way for what seemed like an eternity at least for any traffic she unfortunately encountered. As far as she was concerned, Leonard’s brand new Saab had no right to be where it was. Even its right to exist was questionable in her murky mind.

“I always stop at the stop sign when I shop at Nice Foods,” she toldthe police officer called to the scene, “I can’t help it if he was in my way. He hit my car. I had the right of way.”

Leonard had tensed his muscles when he saw the phlegm-colored Studebaker approach, and impact triggered a generalized pain almost immediately. But within minutes as Leonard’s sad Saab story was ending, he recalled California health insurance agent Matt Lockard and he managed a weak smile.

“You stupid ninny. Why are you smiling like a jackass?” Agnes screamed at Leonard while flashing what could only be described as her characteristic reptilian grin. At that precise instant, all Leonard could produce in response was an agonizing grimace accomplished while smiling because he now knew it annoyed the vicious woman.

When the phlegm-colored Studebaker and its despicable driver had begun to recede into Leonard’s memory, and after he’d been treated to alleviate the neck and back spasms caused by the accident, a more pleasant interlude occurred. Leonard found himself inside the office of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

“You’re completely covered,” Matt said, “and your auto insurance covered the damage to your Saab. It’s fixed good as new. But that elderly driver …”

“I don’t blame her,” asserted Leonard, “Life’s too short.”

“Not for the woman who hit you,” replied Matt. “She’d take any moment she gets, and yours too.”

When a Father’s Day traditional pig roast results in accidental burn injuries to a gentle boy’s hands, it’s fortunate that his parents had purchased a child’s policy from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

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The Smuckers of Visalia didn’t make jams and jellies, but for five generations the family had purchased a piglet during the previous December from a local pig farm for roasting on the upcoming Father’s Day. Always the eldest Smuckers child would be charged with raising the piglet to maturity in order for it to be slaughtered on its appointed day in June. This festive and delicious tradition was eagerly anticipated by one and all, although the boy or girl raising the piglet usually had harbored mixed feelings amid a sense of dread about the animal to be inevitably sacrificed. Dan J. Smuckers had told his son Jeffy, age 8, not to get too attached to his piglet. “It’s not a pet Jeffy. It’s just your job to raise him so he gets nice and plump with good meat on him,” he warned.

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But Jeffy was unlike other Smuckers children preceding him. “Yes Daddy,” the boy said, but he already harbored forbidden feelings of affection for his piglet, having secretly named him “Spot” because of a small brown birthmark on its little pink hindquarters. Jeffy was a gentle kid and loved animals, but he’d never been allowed to have a pet.

“Spot” grew up at a normal pace and bonded with Jeffy, often letting the soft-hearted boy scratch him behind the ears. His eight-year-old mind tried frantically to devise a scheme to rescue his porcine friend from its looming encounter with the spit. The pig, for its part, grew big and fat. Finally, it was June, and time for “Spot” to be executed in the shed. Dan surmised his son’s misgivings, and performed the murderous deed when Jeffy was at a sleepover one Saturday. While Jeffy cried and screamed when he found out, he was quiet on Father’s Day until the festive time had arrived, and “Spot” was appropriately spitted. But Jeffy appeared like an avenging little angel when the party was in full swing and the cooking had commenced, and when the boy grabbed the red hot pig to wrench it off the spit ….

Jeffy really cried and screamed as both of his hands were badly burnt. As the family’s SUV raced along to the local hospital’s emergency room, Dan reassured himself with words that he hoped would calm his tender-hearted (and tender-handed) son. “Don’t worry Jeffy. I know you’re sad because of that pig. But at least treatment in the hospital burn unit will be covered because we purchased a child’s health insurance policy from our California agent, Matt Lockard.” But Jeffy just screamed all the louder.

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Moms to be unable to afford California health insurance coverage may qualify for the Access for Infants and Mothers Program (AIM) or else the Medi-Cal Income Disregard Program, both administered by the State of California.

If the Terminator’s controversial budget cuts somehow spare them, two health insurance options that financially struggling pregnant moms to be might target is AIM – The Access for Infants and Mothers program, a health insurance program administered by the State of California that is not a Medi-Cal program, and one that is, the Medi-Cal Income Disregard Program.

AIM provides full coverage private health insurance at low cost to pregnant women during pregnancy as well as a full two months beyond into post-natal. To be eligible, the family’s income must fall between 200% and 300% of the Federal Poverty Level amount as configured by the size of the applicant’s family. Property limits do not apply. Applications are accepted at local Social Service Agency Intake offices where an appointment with an Information Supervisor is appropriate.

Although the Income Disregard Program has a lower income threshold for eligibility, it involves considerably more "red tape." Pregnant women seeking "Income Disregard" coverage must apply in person by visiting one of the Social Service Agency Intake offices and filling it out an application or calling an Intake office and asking for a mail-in-Medi-Cal application. Again, the Information Supervisor is the key contact person. But to "disregard" your income, you first must prove that you don’t have any, more or less. Applicants must provide proof of identity, proof of pregnancy, proof of Social Security number, proof of immigration status, proof of California residency, and perhaps most crucially, proof of income. So expect to bring along a slew of documents to your interview.

Requirements are stringent because the Income Disregard Program is true to its name. To eligible pregnant women, this special Medi-Cal program provides prenatal and postnatal care to pregnant women at no cost. But pregnant women applying for this program must be fully evaluated by an Eligibility Worker (EW) at one of the Intake offices and determined to have a share of cost. A share of cost is roughly equivalent to a monthly deductible. It is the amount for medical expenses that a Medi-Cal beneficiary must pay or be obligated to pay prior to any reimbursement for medical expenses by Medi-Cal. Also, the net nonexempt family income must not exceed 200% of the Federal Poverty Level while eligibility can begin no earlier than the first day of the month the pregnancy is reported.

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One Reason You May Need Trip Cancellation Insurance

Stanford R. Doe and his wife Jane were about to board the plane, Southwest Flight 6754, at Gate 3 in LAX when they heard the news. Up until that tense moment, they’d figured that buying T.R.I.P. insurance had been one of those purchases performed out of prudence in case of the unthinkable. But in that instant, they knew.

“Mr. and Mrs. Doe wait!” the urgent voice had shouted.

Because of what had happened, the couple had no choice. They walked as if in a daze, but unassisted to the airlines ticket counter to cancel their flight to Tunisia, where Stanford and Jane had long dreamt of celebrating their second honeymoon, although their first one had occurred a mere six months earlier.

They drove the rental to inspect the ruins. A gas explosion had gutted their home and all their belongings. They stopped the rental, a Rambler station wagon, in front of what had been their front yard. “All that grass seed wasted,” Stanford told his grieving wife with tears pouring down his cheeks, “and the automatic sprinkler system, it’s b-broken,” he sobbed, his voice choked by emotion and by the odor of charred dandelions in the fetid air.

“What will the neighbors think?” Jane cried out, as if she were a wounded self-conscious beast without a split-level, which she now was.

They still had a cell phone that worked. It was purple, a sad color. She put in a call to California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, as if to be reassured like the small homeless child she’d so suddenly become in her now infantile mind. He’d been expecting

a call from the forlorn Does, after reading about the explosion in yesterday’s news. Hearing Matt answer, all she could do was sob into the receiver.

“It’s activated. Don’t worry about your trip cancellation. You have full Patriot T.R.I.P. coverage. You and Stanford wouldn’t have enjoyed Tunisia under these circumstances. The travel agent will understand about losing his commission. He won’t be angry at you for canceling,” Matt spoke softly into the phone, realizing that a couple’s dreams had been shattered, both in the sense of where they were going, and where they’d been. But at least T.R.I.P. had saved them from what might have added insult to their injury.

“Thank you so much Matt,” Jane managed to blurt.

“Just doing my job as a California Health Insurance agent,” he replied self-effacingly. “I reacted instinctively when I sold you that policy. It’s what I do.”

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Wine Tasting

Chris and Sally would never have thunk it. They were an amorous and amiable couple, married for the better part of three years, prudent in the extreme, and were headed out to Temecula for a pleasant sojourn of wine tasting. “The tour will be fun,” Sally said, “and the local wines are superb.”

But there were so many wineries to choose from. Finally, a fateful decision was made. They turned their 2007 Toyota Tundra into the driveway and parked.

The tour began pleasantly enough. Harry, their guide and waiter, brought over twin tasting glasses of Syrah. “It’s a dry red table wine,” he said, “very nice.”

“Very nice,” Chris and Sally echoed in unison. The afternoon was perfect. A cloudless sky, not excessively hot, a little breeze was blowing at low levels near the ground, like a miniature headwind. It felt good on the skin.

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Next was a Cabernet Sauvignon. “This one is mild, note its deep red color, and its blackberry aroma,” the suave Harry said, dressed in a lavender Tuxedo, to accent certain flavors.

“Wow,” said Sally, “this is wonderful!”

“Indeed,” echoed Chris.

Harry interjected a factoid to make the couple’s experience yet more delicious. “Were you aware that this Sauvignon is aged in oak barrels for 18 months prior to bottling?”

He didn’t say that the particular oak tree on the premises used by the winery for bottling had been destroyed because it had been infested by killer bees.

“No, we weren’t aware,” Chris replied a little too loudly and emphatically.

The Zinfandel arrived next at their outdoor table. “This white dessert wine doesn’t age well, I’m afraid,” he spoke a second prior to the look of pure fear becoming apparent on his features.

At the worst possible moment, the Sadharts began arguing.

“It’s spicy,” said Sally.

“You’re wrong. It’s fruity!” Chris yelled with altogether too much emphasis.

The swarm of killer bees, guided to their table by the current of the micro-breeze and the vibrations of their arguing and possibly by Harry’s colorful if incongruous attire, began stinging the couple again and again. This did not feel good on the skin.

The Sadharts were fortunate that Harry had once been an ambulance driver and that an Urgent Care center was very close, and especially that the bills were taken care of.

“It was prudent of us to obtain emergency coverage from a California Health Insurance agent,” Sally purred through swollen lips a few days later. “We were extremely prudent, dear, although we’ll be in agony for the next few weeks.”

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Dodger Stadium

Mickey Moosaka’s nephews and nieces were at their wit’s end. What activity would their cantankerous grand-uncle agree to participate in that the entire family might attend? He’d turned down bowling. “It reminds me of pinheads,” old Mickey said. He avoided restaurants. “Flies and their eggs on every plate,” he said, sickening anyone within earshot. Miniature golf emphasized the codger’s recently shrunken stature. “Don’t belittle me by taking me to a place like that,” he’d said to his thrifty niece Sappy in his rather squeaky Buster Brown voice. It was decided that “Uncle Mickey” would take in a Dodger game at the Stadium. Above all else, he enjoyed baseball, despite his consummate fears. He finally relented but warned, “I’ll probably get bonked by a foul ball off the bat of Manny Ramirez.” The geezer was a lifelong Dodger fan but had never been to a game in person.

The Moosakas got a nice row of boxes not far from home plate but well back in the upper deck. The seats seemed relatively safe. “These are great seats, huh Grumpa,” chirped twelve-year-old Matty to his beloved great-great-uncle. Matty was in his last year of Little League and played all-star caliber shortstop on a junior version of the resurgent Dodgers.

Fifty or sixty foul balls came and went, a few coming close, within a few rows, by the sixth inning, when the famous Dodger left fielder approached the batter’s box. “He’s going to conk me with a foul ball,” Mickey Moosaka predicted. The first pitch to Manny Ramirez was a fastball, which he took. The next two pitches were outside, so the count was 2-and-1 when the fateful pitch came. “This one hits me, I know it,” wailed old fearful Mickey. “No, it won’t,” said Sappy, fast becoming Mickey’s least favorite niece. “You worry too much.” But the next pitch, a curveball, was fouled back on an ominous trajectory. It seemed like the ball had eyes. Sure enough, it smacked old Mickey on the forehead with tremendous force, knocking him cold. Carried out of the ballgame on a stretcher, he was taken to the nearest hospital.

But Sappy was no sap. “Thank God we already had accidental coverage from a California Health Insurance agent,” she said. “It didn’t cost us a cent.”

“Thank God Grumpa Mickey didn’t die!” wailed Matty, placing priorities correctly.

“I guess,” Sappy was forced to agree.

The man who entered Matt Lockard’s cheerful and tastefully decorated office on that Wednesday afternoon wore buckles on his shoes and a silk shirt dating from the 18th Century. He carried a sword of some kind quite visible in the scabbard he wore. He also wore a black patch over his right eye. His teeth were rotten and his skin was mottled and yellow. He caught Matt staring.

“What?” the man said. “Haven’t you ever seen scurvy a’fore?”

Matt Lockard is not a man to unsettle easily. “C-an I help you?” he said while flashing his own well-flossed pearly whites.

“I’ve heerd that you’s a sellin’ Kidnap and Ransom insurance to shipping crews,” the mysterious man said. “I’m prepared to set me sails off beyond the African continent next month.”

“You heard right,” Matt said with a bit more confidence.

“Better give me some,” said the mysterious man. He provided his name as Edward Teach, and demonstrated a clear vulnerability. “I want to feel safe. Heard tell that there’s pirates agin’ roamin’ the seven seas, making the waters treacherous. Can I pay with gold pieces, or do you require silver?”

“You’re a teacher?” Matt asked. Part of a syllable had evidently been made to walk the plank.

“Yes, something like that,” Teach said, his teeth giving off a slight stench as he opened his gob.

“You’re smart to purchase kidnap/ransom insurance,” Matt added, feeling more at ease with the man. “Gold or silver, it’s all the same to me. Just no doubloons. They don’t fit in the cash drawer properly.”

“What else does it cover?” Mr. Teach asked once the transaction had been consummated.

“The EPIC 1 plan covers illegal detention, extortion, home invasion, carjacking, and numerous other means of extorting money from you,” Matt explained.

“I see,” said the swashbuckler, suddenly grinning from ear to ear, “You are an honorable sort Lockard, an honorable sort indeed.”

“I’m a California Health Insurance agent sir. I be nothing more, nothing less.”

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Sixty-seven-year-old Evelyn Saguaro had the same problem her late mother had once been afflicted with. Besides her real gall bladder, she’d been born with a vestigial secondary one in which three cactus-like gallstones, each about the size of a quarter, had formed. Late in life, the vestigial gall bladder’s gallstones were starting to act up. Sharp pains would erupt beneath her breastbone immediately after she ate even a tiny serving of anything, and the acute pain made her sick to her stomach. When her doctor ordered tests to identify where the symptoms were originating from, he told Evelyn that her Medicare Plan only covered her original gall bladder, and since the stones had formed in the vestigial one, any procedure to remove them in “her unique case” would not be reimbursed. Her primary care physician kidded with her. “I suggest you refrain from eating,” he said. “Are you serious?” she asked. “No, a better idea might be to seek out a California Health Insurance agent.”

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That’s when she realized that she had done just that, two years previously. Was her Medigaps supplemental still in force? She headed on a beeline to the Visalia office where she’d purchased the Medigap coverage. Was the office still there? It was. The same agent, Glenda, was at her familiar desk. During their previous conversation which she’d somehow forgotten, Glenda had shared with her that she too had a “vestigial gall bladder,” with its associated symptomology not yet evident. Glenda had even belonged to an online organization, a regular support group called VGB Sufferers International.”

“Glenda, I’m so glad to see you,” Evelyn began. “Is my Medigaps policy still in effect?”

“Why wouldn’t it be, dear? Let me check.”

Evelyn waited expectantly. Suddenly her gallstone pain returned with a vengeance. “Is it? She asked, almost gasping.

“Of course it is, my dear Mrs. Saguaro.” A month later, Evelyn’s surgery was successful and her cacti-shaped stones were displayed on her mantle, and on the VGB Sufferers website as a digital photo – for all to see.

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Silas Behrens was still working full-time at 96. But he wanted to find a way to provide for his great-great grandsons Pete and Troy, ages 13 and 16 respectively, who now lived with him. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had passed on, but their great-great grandfather Silas was like the Energizer Bunny. He kept going, and going. The perceptive teens and the man they deceptively called “Grampy Gramps” were having a conversation around the kitchen table. Grampy Gramps seemed no different than he’d ever been, but other kids at school had placed doubt in Pete’s heart, as well as in Troy’s, about their relative’s long-term future.

Pete was speaking through his anxiety which had so far been unwarranted. “Grampy gramps, it’s just that you’re older than most of the other parents of kids at our school,” he said in his still pre-pubertal voice, “What if something happens and you get laid off, and can’t find another job?”

Troy, already through puberty as was his Grampy Gramps, put it more succinctly, “What if you d-die?” The idea wasn’t so farfetched, especially in their family, which had been one of the Grim Reaper’s favored destinations.

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Silas tried to nip such fears in the bud. “I won’t get laid off. I’ve been at Brown Sod for seventy-five years, and the boss recently reassured me about that, my dear great-great grandson. Besides, I’m still fit as ever. Even if this economy were to put me out of a job, experienced diddlers don’t grow on trees.” Neither teen was quite sure about what their Grampy Gramps actually did at work, but he played tackle football with them out in the field by the Escondido creek and could still outrun them both – as well as most of their friends.

“What if you have a heart attack and d-die?” Troy repeated, tears in his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll go see that nice young man Matt Lockard at his insurance agency. My health insurance and the kid plans for you guys we bought from him. I’ll see about some term life.” His great-great-grandsons smiled, as both liked Mr. Lockard. Their “Grampy Gramps” always knew what to do.

To make this story shorter, Matt proved as resourceful as Silas Behrens. He took his teens with him to Matt’s office, after the long drive in the immaculate Rambler wagon. After a half-hour meeting, Mr. Lockard had improvised a plan that would re-assure Pete and Troy until they were well into adulthood, until their beloved Grampy Gramps’s turned 118.

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