Why I Don't Have Health Insurance

I know, you are probably thinking, what the hell is wrong with this woman? Can't she do anything right? Sorry. Shouldn't put words in your mind. I am not feeling very well, yet, still. I looked at the soft and lovely sunrise sky this morning and thought it looked like the twilight, not the dawn. Time for bed, not the time for fresh beginnings. That's what these sad, tired eyes see.

Anyway, I was conversing online with an English friend, and he had just seen the movie "Sicko", Michael Moore's film about the health care debacle here in the United States. And I realized, I have my own health care (or lack of it) tale of indignation and woe to tell.

I used to have health insurance. I am fortunate to live in a state that has comprehensive coverage for children and families. I qualified for that plan until I became too poor for it. Yes, too poor. After the Vampyr left, my household income was cut in half, and my health insurance that was covered by a private company and by Medicaid, the state program, became strictly the province of Medicaid. Medicaid is funded totally by the state, from taxes, I think. But once a person dips well below the poverty line, as I did, if she has children, she is eligible strictly for Medicaid.

However, the state is not so generous once you descend to this level and it looks for any and everyone to pay part of your insurance. I began to get letters from Social Services, and so did my boss. They wanted to know how much money I had in the bank. They got nosey about my assets. They wanted to know if my employer had a health insurance plan. He does, and it costs as much as one of my paychecks per month to be a part of it. Then, they got into my divorce papers and saw that in there, it was stipulated that the X is beholden to put our daughter on his health insurance plan if he has one. They told me I had to take him to court so that they could question him about that. They sent me the necessary papers to file with the court. Also required was a certified copy of our divorce, something I could only get at the County Clerk's Office, many miles away. Being without a car, my boss drove me there at the same time he took his son for his violin lesson. I went to the Clerk's Office and paid the $5 and got the copy. I had a friend notarize the papers and I sent them in.

I really did not want to face the X in court. I also did not want to take time off from work and lose pay just to appear in court. But the state said they wanted to question him in court about his own health insurance, if he had any. If he didn't, they planned to require him to report to them monthly about whether he had gotten insurance yet or not.

In the meantime, I called Social Services and told them my divorce was a domestic violence case, and that I really did not want to face the X in court. They said I did not have to appear, that a representative of Social Services would be there in my stead. Big sigh of relief, albeit a short one, because.....

...the papers were returned to me by the court. They instructed me that they needed a certified copy of my separation agreement, not my divorce. I had simply been following the instructions given me by Social Services. I knew the county charged $2 a page for copies, and that my separation agreement was over 40 pages long. I called Social Services and told them that if I was poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, did they truly think I had $80 to piss away on copies? $80 was about how much I spent on groceries a week. I asked them to provide the court with the copy of my separation agreement that they had in their files. They refused. So I refused. They cited me as 'non-compliant' and took away our Medicaid coverage.

The kicker is my daughter told me the X now has health insurance, and that she asked him to put her on it but he always makes excuses. He is so cheap! And so negligent as a parent. I hate him. I do. I had the thought last night that one of the loneliest things a person (this person) can do is raise a child alone. It just isn't right, it ain't even natural, but it is my life.

There's a part in the song "Fallen Angel" by Robbie Robertson (he was a member of the group The Band and is a Six Nations Reserve Mohawk) where he says: "Gotta play the hand that's dealt ya/That's what the old man always said."

Even if it mostly feels like an exercise in damage control.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai