The 1990s may have been the best decade of my life, the one during which I got married, had my two sons, bought a house in Brookline, got a master’s degree, traveled extensively, and started work at Chipcom, my favorite job ever. The Internet was nascent, smart phones unknown, the deficit falling, and the economy booming.
The joys of my 90s may have been directly related to my being white and college-educated. Policy and social seeds planted then have blossomed into extreme partisanship, mistrust of science, criminalization of Blackness, rampant houselessness, lack of jobs offering a livable wage, and egregious economic inequality. Not the best decade after all.
Nonetheless I was reminded of the joys of my nineties during a visit to my new Medicare doctor’s office, a clothes-on visit, a chance to register myself, get my stats and concerns into the computer, and ferret out any immediate needs.
The PA was pert and personable and persistent. She had a lot of questions and she wrote everything down. Six decades of operation and procedure history plus probing into my most minor health indicators and lifestyle details resulted in a list of medical test to-dos for me. I thought I was pretty healthy, I said. Oh, you’re the healthiest person I’ve seen all day, she chortled.
So why the long list of recommendations? It reminded me of the days before managed care, when I had primo employer-based health insurance and my doctor was Very Concerned that we follow up on even the Slightest Chance of Anything At All, all at No Charge to me. Was I in a time warp?
My husband is a little older than I am, and he got the answer right away: Welcome to the world of Medicare, in which all treatments are covered, the circle of [American economic] life.
Culminating Triad 
I see the economic decline of the middle class as really starting in the 1980s. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t regret my votes in those years. What finally opened my eyes to that mess was the Iran/Contra fiasco. Never again.
I was amused when I had my first medical visit after going on Medicare. Although I’ve been going to the same doctor’s office since just after my blood pressure spike almost four years ago, they are required to ask certain questions of all first-time Medicare patients, including:
“Are you feeling depressed?”
No more now than I have been since having to move to Florida 12 years ago, and definitely a lot less than I was from 2017-2021. (I didn’t say that, but it’s what I was thinking.)
“Have you fallen lately?”
No. (Not at all. I do realize balance is increasingly precarious for elders. I may have given myself a boost between martial arts and ballroom classes.)
The intake nurse at my cardiologist’s office also asked me if I’ve fallen. This also reminds me of Elayne Boosler’s standup routine from about 35 years ago, in which she said her senior relatives would tell her, “You’re getting about that age. Don’t you think you should be getting married soon?” To which she replied, “You’re getting about that age. Don’t you think you should be breaking a hip soon?”
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