What Happens When You Don't Have Private Health Insurance

I opened up my blogger thinking, "I should post about what we did this weekend!"

"What DID we do this weekend?"

"Wait. It's Thursday?"

"So it's almost the weekend?"

My life apparently revolves around these brief and blessed breaks from getting up at 5:30 am to send the husband off to work.

So since we actually did nothing last weekend except going into town, which is an Event for us nowadays, I'll write about What Happens When You Don't Have Private Health Insurance.

I've been pregnant twice before. I lost the first baby at 10 weeks pregnant; the second baby is the one you see all the pictures of. For both previous pregnancies, I did not have health insurance, and had to go to Hastings, the free Indian hospital.

Except I'm white. The Indian hospital only cares about me when I'm pregnant, because Ryan's Native American. And won't see me unless I have a doctor's note that I'm pregnant. (Walmart pregnancy tests don't count; I asked.)

So here's the vicious circle: I can't get healthcare because I can't prove I'm pregnant. I can't go to the doctor to get the magical proof of pregnancy because I have no insurance. I'm going to Hastings BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE INSURANCE. They won't see me because I can't prove I'm pregnant.

(Or get on SoonerCare so you can go to a private hospital, which is what I plan on doing this time. They still want a proof of pregnancy to give you pregnancy insurance, though.)

The solution? Pay cash for a fancy Ob/Gyn pregnancy test; get the rest of the prenatal care free. It costs $17.50.

But this pregnancy? I got to the window, told them I need a pregnancy test and I'd be paying cash, and instead of smilingly handing me the clipboard, the two ladies at the window looked at each other uncertainly and one said, "ummmm, do you have SoonerCare?"

"No, that's why I need the pregnancy test, so I can get on SoonerCare, or go to Hastings, or something."

"Welllllllll, if you're paying in cash, it'll be $55, but if you apply for the SoonerCare Family Planning plan, you're automatically pre-approved online, and it'll be free."

"WHAT??? It was $17.50 the last two times I did this!!"

"Yes, but we're not allowed to do a sliding scale with our charges anymore, and we're now required to charge you a $37.50 office visit fee too."

thankyouhealthcarereformIHATEYOUitsallyourfaultistilldonthaveprenatalcare

And the SoonerCare online application doesn't work. So I can't go take a pregnancy test. So I can't get the health insurance I'm supposedly entitled to, as a pregnant mom under a certain income level. I can't even go to the Indian hospital where they treat Native Americans (not me, of course, but the baby) for free. If I got strep and needed to get antibiotics or my baby might die, I would just be stuck. Or beg my pharmacist father in law for smuggled antibiotics. Or something. Because I don't have $55 to spend on peeing in a cup so someone can dip the exact same litmus strip in it that I bought at Walmart for $4 and tell me what I've known for thirteen weeks.

You read that right. Our new wonderful healthcare reform is requiring my local Ob/Gyn to charge $55 for an uninsured woman to get a proof of pregnancy so that she can get insurance. It's requiring the health department to charge $45, they said at the clinic. What used to cost a price that made me take a luxury or two off the next grocery list now costs enough to make me take all our produce and dairy off the next grocery list.

It was kind of Oklahoma to begin offering the family planning insurance, which covers pregnancy tests. It would sure be nice if they'd get their website working, so that I could get approved for the family planning insurance, so I could get proof that I'm pregnant, so I could get full insurance, so I could, you know, go in and finally hear my baby's heart beat and be reassured that he/she is growing enough. Or I could drive *back* in to town by myself during the day, which is a burden when you live in the middle of NOWHERE and which we usually do after work or on weekends together, fill out the papers at DHS and wait two or three weeks or however long it takes them to get around to it just to be allowed to go pee in the cup.

Because *this* is what our healthcare reform is really doing for everybody who doesn't work at a job that provides health insurance: SCREWS US OVER. Yeah, I love you and your assumption that everybody worth anything works for Corporate America too. Man, I can't wait until I have to pay a *fee* for not being able to afford your crappy insurance. And whatever's available from the government for those who can't afford it is probably going to be very similar to Hastings: traumatic to a degree that I would almost rather give birth in a parking lot next time.

So whose brilliant idea *was* it to outlaw a sliding scale for cash customers, so that those who came in with money instead of Blue Cross/Blue Shield cards would no longer be able to afford to be seen? Or to put so many burdens on the insurance companies that they had to raise their premiums to levels that regular people can't afford anymore? I mean, the system sucked before, but it sucks way worse now.

Wow, that was supposed to be a funny story and totally turned into a political rant. I guess I need to go put my grumpy pregnant butt in a hot bath with a fantasy novel.

*NB: Full Disclosure: When Ryan heard my horrified gasp of "FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS?" he said, "whatever, just do it." I was the one who decided, not that we didn't have the money, but that we needed it for other things more. We're not destitute. If you were getting ready to take up a collection for our poor impoverished family, we'll still take it, though.*

For the weak, for the strong

In the year or so that elapsed after the Australian Shepherds were banished outside and before Heidi learned to put food into her own mouth, sweeping my floor every day was a sure sign that I was becoming intolerably anal about my housekeeping. Now, sweeping the floor after every meal slightly increases one's chances of being able to walk across the floor barefoot without being overwhelmed by the ick.

She has me in training, folks.

Hygiene is for the weak.
Aversions to dirt and bugs and slimy things such as half-masticated bread balls in the house are for the weak.
Sleep is for the weak.
Heightened emotional states due to pregnancy are DEFINITELY for the weak.

Sitting around for hours doing nothing but playing with the baby and babbling back to her is for the STRONG.



I can't wait until the next one is her age and SHE can be the entertainment. I will referee from up above while I, you know, get stuff done. If my ideas of life with two under two are overly rosy, please don't tell me. Such optimistic ideas will be short-lived enough as it is. Let me enjoy them while they last.

A new arrival! and the joys of caffeination

Announcement announcement! We're expecting a playmate for Heidi sometime in the beginning of February! Hurrah!

And as of this morning, to all the naysayers who say that caffeine is bad for you during pregnancy, I say blergh. 

When I found out I was pregnant, I ceased my morning coffee, and coincidentally absolutely ceased to be productive during the day. At all. After feeding Ryan breakfast, packing him lunch, making him coffee and sending him off to work at 6:15 am, I would go back to bed. Wake up when Baby woke up, nurse her in bed while dozing for, oh, an hour. Trudge out to the kitchen, make breakfast for us. Eat at leisure. Put on boots and go garden, lament that it was only going to be shady for 30 more minutes. Get one row weeded, trudge back inside. Put baby to nap, sleep. Wake up when she woke up, trudge into the kitchen to eat some lunch. Finally, at about 1:30, think about the fact that I should clean a little, or maybe work on the book. Simultaneously realize that I haven't made bread or thought about what's for dinner. Make bread, spend 30 minutes thinking about what's for dinner. Decide to make spaghetti and therefore not to worry about it for 4 more hours. Put baby down for afternoon nap; fail at self-discipline and lay down anyway. Have finally swept the floor by the time Ryan comes home. Have to admit to him that in 10 hours I've only weeded one row and swept the floor because I'M JUST SO DARN TIRED.

So last night I admitted to him that I just can't do this healthy thing anymore. Unless, that is, he's happy to have a wife who sleeps all day. He said, "well, then drink coffee!" (This is the same man who tried to forbid me any caffeine whatsoever when I was pregnant with Heidi. Tried. For our own good, of course.) And this morning, I had two cups of blessed blessed coffee.

Which means I weeded almost all of the watermelons AND the radishes AND the turnips.  And trellised the peas. And weeded the one canteloupe plant that I had forgotten to put straw around. And picked all the dangerously fungus-y looking leaves off the raspberries. And ate three blueberries and one absolutely perfect strawberry.

I was going to bring it up to the house to take a picture of it, because it was perfect. And then I smelled it. I couldn't help myself. It was deep bright red and shiny, small and round and just ripe enough to have the seeds fall off in little squishy patches when you squeezed it. And it was SWEET AND DELICIOUS.

All before baby's naptime. She played on a big fuzzy blanket out in the shady part of the garden, and then got bored, whined a bit and fell asleep. To be quite honest, I wouldn't have done so much out in the garden if she hadn't fallen asleep, but once she was asleep I thought it a shame to wake her up to bring her inside. She also learned that weeds are itchy when you crawl off your blanket onto them, and that dew is chilly. She has some little red bumps and lines on her skin from the grass. And you know what? I'm ok with that. I'm working so very hard at overcoming my hyperprotective instincts.

I might join Heidi for nap #2 this afternoon. In fact, I hope to. I'm gestating; I'm entitled. But oh my goodness, my life is so much happier this morning for being caffeinated. If anybody knows how to be coffee-energetic on only water, I'm willing to listen. In the meantime, though, natural health and responsibility are far less important to me than feeling human.