Thursday, May 5, 2011

Quick Update! (and a soap box that you can skip)

Just wanted to post a quick update about some new stuff!

a) I am slowly getting into a bit more of a cleaning routine. Bed is made every morning, I refuse to put clothes in a pile, dishes are completely done before going to bed each night, Jon's toys are picked up (nearly) every night after dinner, and bathroom is getting cleaned once a week. My next big things to tackle are keeping my work space organized (I work part time from home), figuring out when to vacuum on a regular basis. Your comments have been very encouraging : ) My brother and I talked about how we are having to figure out how to do daily chores as adults since we didn't have daily chores as kids. Wouldn't trade my childhood for anything, but there are some downsides to not being made to keep your room tidy. : )

b) Jon is eating his vegetables!!! Thanks to his new skill of using a spoon and dipping, we are packing the veggies in. Today he ate an entire helping of semi-pureed vegetables without any problem at lunch. He was so excited to be using a spoon and feeding himself : ) He also ate an entire ham and cheese sandwich (well, a toddler sized sandwich) at lunch! I am very thankful for this good week of eating. Last week was...shall we say...unpleasant.

c) Jonathan has a job! We had some drama with health insurance options earlier this week, but I think things are going to work out. I'll report more on the job once Jonathan gives me the okay. (He hasn't officially signed any paperwork yet).

Soap box of the week: HEALTH INSURANCE
Most of you are probably insured through an employer, and probably have a large pool of people on your insurance plan. That is what I had at Youth Villages. Let me tell you: all of the 60+ hour work weeks, getting cursed out by the occasional kid or parent, and crying every now and then was TOTALLY worth it for the rock star health benefits. I don't think I will ever have an insurance plan like I had with YV. Low premium, low co pay, low deductible...very nice! Our current health plan is good, I think probably on par with most folks. What Jonathan was offered with his future job was simply not affordable at all. Our monthly budget just would not have been able to manage. So I started looking into purchasing individual coverage. There are actually several very good individual plans out there for families. IF you are not going to have any more children. Apparently insurance companies only used to offer maternity coverage as a rider, or add on, to individual plans. I suppose this makes sense, since anyone can get cancer or get in a car accident, but only women can get pregnant. (Does it really make sense though?) However, due to a loop hole in the health care law, insurance companies are not mandated to offer maternity riders, so guess what? Since they don't have to do it, they aren't! There is no way in the state of Texas to have pregnancy and delivery covered by an individual insurance plan. No way. It is not offered. At all. So if you are self employed, or your employer doesn't offer group insurance, or your group insurance is crazy expensive because one colleague has a family member with cancer and you can't afford your premium...you have to pay out of pocket to have a baby. I always thought of maternity coverage as basic, and maybe...maybe...quality medical care while pregnant and delivering your baby might help lower our infant mortality rate. But apparently only those who have employer coverage or Medicaid should be offered insured medical care while pregnant. Does this not make you want to throttle both insurance companies and politicians? What makes me more mad is that politicians are arguing over federal funding for abortions, and no one has even mentioned that individual insurance plans do not even offer the option of a maternity plan. If you have an unplanned pregnancy and are facing either paying $15,000 out of pocket to carry your baby to term and deliver it in a hospital or have an abortion...what do you think people are going to choose? If you do not want people to have abortions, please make carrying a baby to term and delivering it affordable. Please : ) I had no idea that this maternity rider issue was there until it affected me**, and I am sure there are many other aspects of our health care system that are equally as unimaginable, but I am just not aware of them because they do not affect my every day life. So now I am telling everyone I know that this is out there. I think I'll even write to my legislators.

** Note: I am not pregnant. Just didn't want to confuse anyone ; )

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