Month by month
- February 2019
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- April 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- April 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- December 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
Monthly Archives: March 2008
>We’re not alone…
Posted in Uncategorized
>No health insurance: 1st report
>My insurance is finished at the end of this month.
OK that is five days from now.
My insurance is also my husband’s and my two big children.
My job is over; my boss “let go” five editors as if we were catch and release fish. He also let go of our health insurance. I had been paying this man and his company for seven years to cover my family and now I find out that it was “ illegal” for him to offer me insurance because I was freelance. But he offered it. And I payed heavily to have it…nearly $13,000.00 every year.
No matter. I cannot be COBRA’d as it was all illegal. A fortune of money down the drain and now we are scrambling, looking at options to find insurance.
Here I am in middle-class/middle-aged in America with too much education and too little employment and now a family with big kids and no health insurance. This is the plight of many, literally millions of Americans, but all terror is worse when it is personal.
So for the last six weeks, since I knew my job and coverage was over on March 31, what would have been my father’s 94th birthday, I have searched for insurance.
I have gone on web sites, called insurance brokers and gotten progressively more depressed. Insurance is expensive and without a job; I can’t consider money out without money in. I have found agents who call back at all hours of the night wanting to sell me group, individual or catastrophic policies, bulk medicines or discount dental work.
My head is swimming.
To add insult to injury, or as some sort of weird universe joke, (Wait does anyone else think this, that god, or the universe, or Shiva watches for good jokes on humans? I think they do, maybe they all do it separately.)
Here is their most recent joke on me.
On Good Friday, fallen Catholic that I am, I went into a bakery to get goodies for the Easter feast. We were hosting 20 or so orphan souls at our dinner. As I emerge, joyful, holding bags of sugar, my ankle twisted, I WAS WEARING CLOGS, and I went down like a felled tree.
I lay in the parking lot screaming, and moaning alternating plaints over the shmused cake and my wretched ankle. My husband was worried, a fellow shopper came over and told me, “You need to stay down much longer than you think is necessary.” OK good advice. I stayed down I could feel the tendons snapping over my bones and my skin begin to expand. We got a five-pound bag of ice and continued on.
By Saturday my ankle and foot were the size of a Macy’s Day Balloon and colors were seeping in. I said to Zachary, “Let’s go use our health insurance before it turns into a pumpkin. As if this were a gift card about to expire.” In fact I have been to an emergency room only once in my life. We went, we waited, they X-rayed and it was ONLY TORN TENDONS. But, they said in that cheery hospital voice, (there must be a course for nurses in that voice) “Sometimes it takes as long, or longer for these sprains to heal.” Oh little miss sunshine.
I wanted to put my foot up, after I cooked dinner and then roll into bed. I did.
It was much larger Easter. I cooked again. A lot more food this time.
I went to bed. I woke up and it was green and even the toes were swollen.
I rode my bike to Pilates.
AHH that will show my body that I am not hurt.
I took the class rode home and cooked dinner.
OK I am looking for work in between cooking and watching my foot swell, and talking endlessly to insurance brokers. I feel as if my name has been put on the insurance version of a bathroom stall and now they all know that I am easy or desperate.
Stayed turned as my foot deflates and I search for insurance work and a sense of calm as a grown up with no insurance in a very scary landscape.
Posted in Uncategorized