MEDICARE SCAM CALLS

I have a flip phone, no smart phone.  I've never texted, never apped, never taken a picture or selfie, never GPSed a location and all of this partly to create private space.  I don't want the world to have access to me every moment of the day.  I don't think it's healthy.  In old school thinking, I view the phone as something I can use to call folks I want to and for folks I want to talk to, to know they can call me.  That's it.  I don't view a phone as an open door for robots to clog up and interrupt my day. 

                  I don't even accept messages.  If it rings and I hear it and it's within reach, I answer it because I've done everything possible to limit any call I get to people from whom I want to hear.  In other words, just because I have a phone does not mean I've given permission to any entity on the planet to interrupt my day. 

                  In the last month, my flip phone rings 2-4 times per day with a robo-call from Medicare saying I haven't activated my meal plan--or some permutation of that theme.  What makes this particularly inappropriate is that I've purposely not opted into Medicare, even though I'm eligible and paid into it for years, because I don't want to become dependent on a government program to make medical decisions for me.  So it's particularly egregious that an agency I've specifically shunned is the one invading my day. 

                  Once in awhile I get the sexual stuff, but it's very seldom.  "Hi, I'm Hannah," she purrs.  Those occur seldom enough to not be a burden.  But this incessant Medicare harassment is another story.  It makes me want to never answer my phone, which if I embark on that policy, irritates my family and staff.  Not good. 

                  I've tried everything from hanging up to screaming "You're an idiot!" a dozen times to asking "what does it take to get you shut up?" a dozen times.  The latest:  "Why don't you go get a real job?" but that's stupid because there's no one on the other end; just a robot.  I have learned that if you do that long enough, the robot stops for about 5 seconds, and then the reel starts back in at the beginning.  The first time that happened, I thought someone was actually on the other end.  Dopey me.  One time the robot began a different twist:  "Why am I upsetting you?"  When I didn't relent, it hung up on me.  Rinse and repeat. 

                  So here's my question, and this is not silly, satire, or stupid (I hope).  How do you get these things to quit?  Does anybody out there know how to stop these things?  And please don't tell me "there's an app."  

                  Junk mail is one thing.  I go to the box, pick up the mail, and use the junk mail envelopes for scratch paper.  If the paper isn't written on both sides, I can use the blank side for scratch paper.  Junk mail yesterday had 5 cents postage.  Are you kidding me?  The Postal Service thinks they can profitably--oh, that's right, they don't have to make a profit--deliver a letter for a nickel?  And they charge me 75 cents for the same thing?  It's outrageous, but that's another rant for another day.  The postal service should deliver mail at most 2 days a week.  That's plenty.  Think how much payroll--and taxpayer funding-- that would save.

                  Also, junk mail only invades my life when I've committed myself to get the mail.  It doesn't drop out of the sky into my hand, uninvited and unsolicited.  I retrieve the mail and it's just part of the process.  And often gives me some good scratch paper.

                  But these robocalls are a different thing altogether.  So as I try to get my blood pressure under control, does anyone out there know how to stop these things?  I've told the robots "you should be strung up," but I don't think that would even stop them because they aren't even beings.  Talking to these things makes about as much sense as talking to a fence post.  I'm open for suggestions.  Thank you.