This is REALLY odd. Optometrists and opticians just look at me funny,

but none of them has ever heard of anything like it, or had anything useful to tell me, except, "go back to where you had your last eye exam."

That was about 9 or 10 months ago. But it was a $20 co-pay to a health plan I'm no longer enrolled in, at one of the chain store 'optical centers' with one of the poorest reputations in town. I did go back, to several of their outlets, but the people there just returned blank stares.

I'm near-sighted, but for the last couple or three years, I've also been using drug store reading glasses (1.50 or 1.75) with my contact lenses (6.50 in each eye.)

Anway, 5 or 6 months ago, I noticed that when I was wearing the contacts -- and the reading glasses -- I could see distant objects more clearly. It works especially well at night. I now always keep my reading glasses handy, for night driving, if I'm wearing contacts.

The downside? When I'm wearing my regular glasses (especially the latest prescription), I need to move them out to the very tip of my nose, about a half inch farther away from my eyes, to see the best. In dim light indoors, the reading glasses and the contacts also don't work as well as they used to.

I'm guessing there's some kind of extra reflection/refraction -- two horizontal hourglasses, instead of one (there are two sets of corrective lenses, one convex and one concave) that happen to overlap in a beneficial way.

It's freaking me out, a little bit, so unless I know I'm going to be active, working out at the gym, I usually just stick to wearing my regular glasses. I don't wear contacts nearly as often.

If anyone's ever heard of anything like this, before, I'd appreciate learning more about it.

Also -- a comletely unrelated question, that is really much, much more important.

A friend of mine works two part-time jobs, so she doesn't qualify for health insurance. She's in her 40's and is a breast cancer survivor. Everything's been fine for the last 3 or 4 years.

However, she needs to have the mammograms annually, and she's been having a hard time finding an affordable health plan. She thought she had found a deal last week, that was affordable and comprehensive, but the coverage excluded tests and office visits. We live in Wisconsin. I've been looking around the web, trying to use search terms (WI + health insurance + compare plan + consumer guide +....), but I haven't found any sort of useful comparisons, or guides.

There are lots of front-door, "new client/customer" finder pages, from different marketers, but nothing like an "epinions" rating service, that looks at different vendors for the benefit of the consumer, and includes comments about prices and level of satisfaction, from patients who have already purchased the insurance, and may no longer be clients or customers. (The back-door-and-out point of view.)

Does anything like that exist? If it doesn't, would it be worthwhile to try and compile something like it, or would it be too difficult, to try to compare level of service from so many different states, on the basis of limited, individual experience?

someone comes along who can help.

I was kind of hoping that there would be regular visitors to the "Health" forum, who might be familiar with other web resources.

Web M.D. is great, but it doesn't have any specific information about individual health insurance plans. They vary so much from state to state.

at the bcbs.com site I found something where you put in your zip and it compares costs of tests in your area. Nothing about customer satisfaction or anything like that but it would sure help to find who does the cheapest test.

I'd like to tell you where on the site that I found it but I don't know. I was just roaming around trying to get information about my particular insurance. I didn't check it out in depth because it wasn't what I was looking for so I don't know how much info it contained. Will update if I figure it out.

Medical + Testing + Cost + Zip Code,

without and without the term bcbs,

but it's probably on a webpage that people can access only after they've logged in as members. No freebies from BlueCrossBlueShield, but the data there is probably skewed too strongly for BCBS members, only, again.

Thanks, though.

Maybe I need to learn how to input the search terms, better, to get through the "top results" pages, that are so crowded with insurance companies trolling for new customers, and sponsored links. Just having the two words "Health" and "Care" in the search bring up so many of those pages, it's hard to tell if there's anything more, buried deeper underneath.

Check out the Wisconsin Well Woman Program. I believe it is administered at the county level and has age and income requirements. Hope this helps your friend.

For anyone else who may be interested, the toll free phone number is 1-800-362-3002.

Webpage:

http://dhfs.wisconsin.gov/MEDICAID1/recpubs/factsheets/phc10065.htm

I never heard of the program. Even if she doesn't qualify (been in remission too long?), someone there might have a good referral to an affordable, individual healthcare plan, with adequate coverage.

That's still the ultimate goal, at least until the next Democratic President, and the new Democratic majority in Congress give us a single-payer system.

Have your optho send you to an eye focusing specialist. I had a "slight" problem, according to my eye doctor in high school, but when I saw the specialist, it turned out I was off by 30 degrees, way more than she'd expected. I do exercises now, and I have to be careful about wearing my glasses for too long without a break. You might find help there.