HOLY OBAMACARE, BATMAN!!! Part 1

In case anyone is interested, (and because I thought it might be interesting to document the process) we lost our health insurance in the recent job change. John prefers to work for small companies where the person he reports to is also the owner of the company. I don't blame him, it's nice that way. We avoid the BS of corporate jobs where you are expendable because someone had a bad day, or your hours get cut because someone needed a bigger bonus. (Yes, these things all happened with his previous employer. Funny thing is, that he is such a good employee that they called him back in less than a week, begging him to come back. He. Said. No. Good man.) Because his new job is at a small company, they do not offer health insurance. They don't have to. So I did something I have never before been able to do....  I went to the marketplace to find out about coverage. This is really important. I've shopped for health insurance before. When I did I had to make applications at each of the companies to get quotes. so if I was interested in five health plans, that meant five applications. This time, I only had to fill out one application.

Um, yeah. If you could just take a 25% pay cut so I can afford more hookers and cocaine, that would be great.

I think it is important to mention here that you can get a pre-application quote on the Kaiser Family Foundation site, but it comes with all sorts of caveats. Basically it tells you that this is a middle of the road plan, with no tax credits included and no information about your family included. So, it's inaccurate. The quotes given do seem kind of pricey, but then I compared it to what we were spending on health coverage with the previous employer.

According to the KFF website I can expect to pay between $4,433 and $6,090 per year for a health care plan. These are Bronze and Silver plans, respectively. According to my benefits enrollment from from the previous employer, we paid $5747 a year for benefits. I'm not certain if their plan is considered a silver or bronze plan. In my opinion it was an aluminum plan, but I digress. I'll keep the benefit info and compare it when I get more information. Either way, they KFF site tells me I'll pay approximately what we paid before.

You, sir, are well covered.

Plus we get a refund if we stay healthy and don't use our premiums. Considering that I went to the doctor twice last year, once for pink eye, and once for an annual exam. John went once, and Trystan's care is through a non-profit hospital, we stand a good chance of recovering a portion of our premiums at the end of the year. (And don't give me that crap about the companies losing money, I worked for a reptile who made healthy profits on a less than 10% profit margin, if these guys can't make it on a 20% profit margin, they're doing it wrong.)

So I decided to fill out an application. Yes, the website sucked and I could not create a login, so I did this crazy thing. I CALLED THEM.

Operator, connect me to the communists!

The voice response unit was good and I got to request a representative within two responses. (I've worked in call centers most of my adult life. Getting a rep withing two responses on a VRU is AMAZING.) There was no hold time before I was connected to a representative, but I was asked if I would participate in a survey. I declined. I then spent 20 minutes with a very pleasant young man who took my application over the phone AND tolerated my bad jokes. He even had the good grace to chuckle once or twice.

I don't get paid enough to deal with you, ma'am.

I realized today that I had given incorrect information about my husbands employer. John was on the road and unreachable, so I had taken a guess and looked up the company info on the DOT website. I picked the wrong company. (Lesson learned: don't take me to Vegas.) I called back to update my application. I spoke to another very pleasant representative who took the updated information. Again, I did not to wait to speak to anyone. I asked how long it would take for my app to be approved, and he informed me that it would be a couple of weeks, but as long as the plan was chosen by December 15th, my coverage would be in place on January 1.

I will keep you updated as the process continues.

You did what???

Some of you may have read my post about my husband buying a hat. Just a synopsis, he was apparently SO COLD that he could not wait even a couple of days for me to make him a PERFECT and LOVINGLY HANDCRAFTED hat for his giant horrible noggin that he bought a hat. 

After appropriate chastisement for his flaw in judgement regarding knitwear, I told him I would knit him a lovely hat, which I have, and only need to complete the matching cowl to keep his sweet head warm. Until this:

HEEEEEAD! Down in front!

Yes, he shaved his giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head. So his giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head is too cold to live without a hat, but not too cold to live without hair??? Not a well thought out plan, sir.

Even worse to include a photo of you in the hat with which your giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head has taken up an affair with.

Look, I'm made of something that squeaks and melts!

My sweet, sweet husband.... You have 7 weeks to grow back some hair on that giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless-too-cold-to-go-2-minutes-without-a-commercially-knit-hat head. Get to it.

I should get an award for this

Actual text of conversation with my friend who is terrified of spiders

Her: There is a huge spider in my laundry room and I'm terrified.

Her: It is sitting there daring me to come closer

(Some time later)

Her: You'd be proud. I hit the wall next to it to scare it away behind the big freezer. Of course, now it will probably go all Power Rangers on me.

(Some time later because I'm a really lousy super good friend)

Me: No it won't. You are bigger and scarier. 

Her; Not after it grows to the size of a house. I was so terrified. Stood there just kind of shaking and terrified for about ten minutes (seemed much longer), was about to start crying that Hubby wasn't here to take care of it. Then I was overwhelmed by my own patheticness. 

Me: LOL. You aren't pathetic. You stood up to your fear and conquered it. I'm proud of you. 

Her: If you had texted back during that 10 minutes, I would have broken down and begged you to come over and take care of it. 

Me: So it's a good thing that I forgot my phone downstairs. I would have told you to suck it up though. 

Her: I know you wold have. Hell, you *were* telling me that - every time I thought of just calling you, I'd hear you say it. 

This is clear evidence of what an asshole a good friend I am.

Me: LMAO, you did it though. The spider won't take it's revenge. They have terrible short-term memory.

Her: Hmm. Have there been studies on that?

Me: I've conducted them myself after lengthy interviews with many spiders. It goes like this: 

"Mr. Spider, are you as scary as people think?"

"Who are you? Where am I? Is there a Starbucks around anywhere?"

*actual quotes from my highly scientific survey

Artist's Rendition of Suspect

Yeah. I should get the "Friend of the Year" award. I'll invite you to see my acceptance speech. There may be scary stuff there. Suck it up. 

You bought a what???

My husband called me today and informed me that it was so cold that he had bought a hat.

This may not be news of any importance to the average person but to me this was like a dagger in my heart. I AM A KNITTER! If you need a hat, dear husband, just say, "Honey, I need a hat." You will have your choice of fibers, colors, gauges, and styles. You want a hat made out of pink lace weight cashmere? I can do that. You want a buffalo shaped hat made out of dog fur? I can do that. You want a hat with the encoded lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody knit into it? I CAN DO THAT.

It's not even like he could say, "Well honey, I bought a hat because I didn't know if you would have the yarn for a hat."

I have plenty of yarn.

This is where I store my yarn. All those drawers? You guessed it, full of yarn:

There is enough yarn in those drawers to make a hat. 121,879 yards of it to be precise. That is 69.25 miles of yarn. My yarn could be used to measure 2.6 marathons. That is the length of 134.3 Burj Khalifas. You could climb and descend Mt. Everest 6 times leaving a yarn trail and still have enough leftover to knit a smart cardigan.

Since the average hat takes about 200 yards of yarn, I have the potential to knit 609 hats. On top of that I also spin. If I included all of the fiber that I could spin I'd have the potential for many, many more hats.

More if they are baby hats. Less if they are the giant horrible heads of evil hat buying husbands.

Lesson of the day: If your wife is a knitter, and you find yourself in the position of needing a hat, just ask. If you are so desperate that you do have to purchase a hat, don't tell her. Have the good grace to at least lie and tell her that you are sooooo cold and couldn't possibly have any other hat than one that she lovingly created with her own hands. You will be gifted with a lovely creation of carefully chosen fiber in a suitable color with all of the properties that you most love in a hat.

I, on the other hand, will spend the rest of my day deciding how best to execute the knitting of a hat in barbed wire and stinging nettles.

A response....

It's been a while since I've hit the blog. School (for both of us), work, keeping the house unstinky, a snot plague and general exhaustion have been to blame. A friend posted a link to another blog on Facebook today and I was so moved that I wrote a response to it. I thought I would share it here.

ThosePeople

My response:

I recall 2008 when the economy tanked and the cost of living in our area practically doubled overnight. People were getting laid off left and right. We were a party to those layoffs. I still had my job. It paid for rent and utilities. No food, no extras. John had just started a new job but we hadn't started getting paid yet. Our savings was depleted after months of searching. He was a lucky one, some people we knew went more than a year with not even an interview. I'm a food hoarder, so we were pretty well set up, but the cupboards got really bare. We called all over town for help. There was no help to be had except for one place that was able to give me a small banana box with some mac and cheese, a couple loaves of bread from a grocery bakery, some dented cans of soup and a few assorted random things. It was humiliating, but we were so grateful and it made all the difference until we were able to get back on our feet. 

Times are better now and I did some volunteer hours this summer in a food pantry with my son. There was no greater joy in this world than handing people food and knowing that they would have a meal on the table for their children that night. I loved the look in kids eyes when they came through and we handed them a special goody from the local bakeries. I recall one mother who worked full time to support her 3 small children and went to school. She came through and blinked back tears as one of the workers presented her son with a birthday cake from the freezer. The very next day was his birthday and she had no money for a cake for him. Those people are my people.

Most of us have needed help at some point or another. Those of us who haven't, well, good for you. That doesn't mean that hard-working, good people haven't struggled and haven't needed help. It disturbs me to think that there are people out there that seem to think that if you have go to bed hungry to keep a roof over your families head that you are therefore no longer of value. Every person is of value. EVERY. PERSON. Even "bad people" have value. No one is less deserving of the basic sustenance of life. Even if it is fancy South American grain. 

How to annoy your dog: Part 1

You're next, Cat.

Culture of Entitlement

I hear this phrase being bandied about quite a bit. I don't think it means what most people think it means. Allow me to illustrate.

Things that are not actually entitlement:

• Equal pay for equal work.
• Caring for the infirm of our society. 

Things that actually are entitlement: 

• Getting huffy when the sofa that I post for free on KSL (the Utah equivalent of Craigslist) is not in prefect condition, and might need a vacuuming. 
• Telling me that the same sofa is not good enough for you since it is not in "like new" condition. 
• Getting huffier when I tell you, "good luck!"

Jerk.