Obamacare. What I've Learned.

It’s a classic case of mercy vs. justice. Both sides are right, it simply falls to which side you want to be on.

It had only been a few months since our wedding (to my first husband) when I started feeling sick. A quick, private moment with a stick from a pink box showed me that what I was feeling would be a nine month ordeal. And then some.

My ex-husband, along with his dad and brothers, had started a family business framing houses. Together they found an insurance agent to set the family up on a group insurance policy through their company. The only thing was my pregnancy created a “pre-existing condition” that stopped the entire family from getting any type of health insurance at all. They proceeded with the setup of the policy without me, leaving me pregnant and uninsured. There was really no other way to do it.

Instead of taking care of my medical matters on my own with the help of insurance, I was forced to apply for Medicaid to make sure the needs of my pregnancy would be covered.

Years later, as news of “Obamacare” started to filter into our brains through news coverage, I sat with The Man and and tried to piece together what it would mean for him as an employer. The recession had been less than kind to many construction contractors on all sorts of levels and though my husband had maintained solid work in framing houses (a coincidence that both my husbands had been working for themselves in the house framing industry) while so many other companies went under around him, the pay was far from what it had been and long days of hard work were barely paying the overhead of his company and providing for our family. Some months it didn’t even do that and the savings account that had been built up slowly became depleted. The thought of having to add insurance for his employees was a thought that was almost too much for us to bear.

People have a tenancy to fear what they don’t understand. And I found that I feared the changes  that “Obamacare” was bringing on one hand, but could understand how good and decent people could use it on the other hand. As I’ve studied out “Obamacare” the best I can, it’s near impossible to read the actual bill, but in searching other websites, articles, and posts that explain the act in lay man’s terms I think I’ve finally reached a basic understanding of the goings on of “Obamacare,” even if it is a rudimentary understanding of it.

Our Weekend, a Few Days Late. And Other Stuff.

The past few days have gotten away from me.  My mind has been full of writing papers and cramming for a midterm (coming soon to a college campus near you.  Okay, maybe that's just me.).

Over the weekend we cashed in the gift cards to a trampoline place (The Wairhouse) that Lindee and Sam gave to The Circus for Christmas.  The Man invited Casidee's boyfriend along.  He decided he wants Max to feel comfortable around us and not have it be all awkward and stuff.

I will forever be glad for The Man's decision to invite Max.  Max nailed him in dodge ball and took him down in a fast whirl wind paced game of tag on the trampolines.

Yes.

It was awesome to watch.

Also, we show up with our own solid dodge ball team, thank you very much.

Also, when Mom's get distracted in church...

On Monday I had lunch with my old BBT crew.  We were only missing Andrew.  Man alive, I love those guys.  Personalities from all over the life spectrum and somehow we found ourselves sitting over a table of smothered burritos and laughing our heads off.

That's what's awesome about life.

And then I drug The Circus to the dollar movie to see a movie that we'd already seen.  It was only a dollar and I wanted to get them out of the house since there was no school and they had so far spent the entire day staring at the boob tube.  So I took them to... stare at a larger scale boob tube but that's not the point.  The point is they invited friends to come along and we had popcorn and it wasn't in our own house.

So somehow that makes it all better.

Leave it to the twelve year olds to dump their popcorn on the floor.

Aside from that I'm writing papers on Obamacare for my English class.  I think I have a pretty solid handle on the ins and outs of it.  Well, what's being said about it anyway.  Apparently no one has actually read the whole thing through?  Not even the people who passed it into law?  Yeah... that seems like a good idea to me.

We don't know what it says fully, but hey, why not.

And I'm writing papers on land conservation for Biology.  As well as studying for a big bad midterm on Monday.

Wish me luck.

If you see me between then and now I'll have a 9 inch stack of flashcards in my hands.

No joke.