Friday, September 11, 2009

health care

Arizona has a proposed constitutional amendment (to be voted on in 2010) which would nullify a national health care system from operating in the state. - Wikipedia

Wow. I haven't looked further into the subject of this amendment of Arizona's, but I do have to assume they've got an exception for Medicare and Medicaid.

Found out today via Minnesota Public Radio that our (MN's) governor, Tim Pawlenty, is a Tenther. Wish that surprised me.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he may invoke state sovereignty to keep Minnesota from fully participating in a health care reform plan, if passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.

"Depending on what the federal government comes out with here, asserting the 10th Amendment may be a viable option," Pawlenty said...

Pawlenty, who is considered a potential candidate for President in 2012, said Thursday he and other Republican governors will get more assertive about raising the 10th Amendment.

"I think we can see hopefully see a resurgence in claims and maybe even bring up lawsuits if need be," he added.

Full article here

On the home front, we just paid close to $1,000 to COBRA for getting our health insurance continued, now that my Mister is out of work. We're only paying $300 a month for our COBRA insurance, for the moment, thanks to it being subsidized. But we had to fork out the amount for the time that it took to get COBRA started, while the paperwork was still in limbo. During that time I had some expensive prescriptions to pay for, and an office visit. Eventually, those bills will be partially reimbursed. Hopefully. But it is frustrating that during the time when we most need insurance, we had more out of pocket medical expenses than ever.

I don't use my own employer's health insurance because it's expensive and not very good. Though, if the Mister gets offered a job that doesn't have adequate health insurance, I guess we'll go with me being covered by mine and him being covered by his, or something of the sort. Assuming whatever job he gets offers any.

I can't thank my family enough for the support they've given us while the Mister looks for a new job. This all came on the tail end of lots of repairs to both our house and the townhouse, so we were not in a good position to deal with it. Bad timing, but thanks to family, it could have been so much worse.