By FRANK LEAHY On a gray February morning, I sat in my office in Inverness, in rural northern California, with the phone pressed to my ear, jotting down notes and Humana reference numbers. Across the table, my new friend Rick, 77, waited anxiously, struggling to follow the conversation. Nearly deaf and now partially blind, Rick had lived with a detached retina for weeks. Time was running out to save his vision. I was determined to get Rick the surgery he needed. But as hours turned into days and days into weeks, I found myself ensnared in the kind of bureaucratic maze familiar to mi...