I Don’t Want to Write About Politics

politics-is-everythingI don’t want to write about politics, but every piece of my life is controlled by it.

I woke up Friday morning and realized my high-school-aged daughter had slept through her alarm. Her high school offers tremendous opportunities for academic and extra-curricular rigor, but if she wants to be a member of the honors society (a prerequisite for her preferred college admissions), she also has to do community service and show some proof of outside-of-school leadership. Thursday, she went to school all day, helped teach at her religious school, and then attended a meeting of a task force at our synagogue, returning home at 8:30pm to begin her homework. Educational policy has set this system up for kids like my daughter, a hamster wheel of achievement that burns kids out by the end of their senior year. Politics made her exhausted today.

When I came downstairs Friday morning, my younger daughter sat at the kitchen counter watching YouTube videos and eating breakfast. Though she seems healthy now, the years of worrying about her growth curve make my furtive glances at her food choices an instinct. I note the volume and count the calories in my head, inventory her planned activity for the day, and check myself; she’s fine. A part of her history stems from misdiagnosis her doctors made and for which they never apologized, a reality that I suspect comes from their fear of lawsuit. That misdiagnosis will stay on her medical chart, making her vulnerable forever to the caprices of health care legislation. My 11-year-old may be doomed to a life of wildly overpriced health insurance. Politics will someday make her — or keep her — sick. Continue Reading…

twitterby feather
Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailby feather

We Know The Things

peas

I have never identified so closely with something written by another mother as I identify with a Mother’s Day essay written last year by Ellen Seidman of LoveThatMax.com.

Entitled, “I am the person who notices we are running out of toilet paper, and I rock: A Mother’s Day tribute to moms everywhere,” this essay includes Seidman’s lists of all the practical, life-improving practical things she notices in her own home. Among things like snack food and glitter and glass-cleaner are also the things like “shoes that fit” and recent family photos and storage for the growing collection of tiny toys from birthday party giveaways. Ellen, like most mothers, also notices uncharged electronics and plugs them in, and she realizes the vegetables in the fridge need to be used before they spoil, and she remembers to procure a gift for the next graduation party her family will attend.

In short, Ellen is a parent.

For most but not all of my female friends with children, Ellen represents in her blog post the inner workings of their minds at all times. Without question, many dads I know have a similar inner monologue, and Ellen notes in her blog that her husband has his own list going. In my house, actually, my husband notices the dwindling toilet paper supply long before I do, but I’m more likely to notice the absence of roasted seaweed, clementines, and red delicious apples before he does. Still, I definitely hold more of the practical, hands-on requirements of child-rearing in my head than he does.

In response, my husband has done a remarkable job thinking ten years ahead of me. When our daughters were born, he set up college savings accounts. He remembers to fund them, too. He handles detailed paperwork like school and religious school registration, health care savings accounts, vehicle research for our current one-car-every-decade-and-a-half car purchasing plan, mortgages, and managing things like making sure the roof isn’t falling in and, if it is, selecting a good roofing company with a good reputation.

And I buy the frozen peas.

Because of this division of labor, when I am forced to consider anything further than a few months away (“does she need new sandals for this summer?”), I find myself out of shape and ill-equipped for the task. I have a talent for dealing with this very moment, and that talent has been honed more than I’d care to have honed it in operating rooms and hospital bedsides over the last dozen years. I know how to throw resources into this very moment far better than how to plan for a moment in the distance. However, as health care plans for this country show a clear path toward ruin for my children, I was forced to get out of this moment and think about what might come next. Continue Reading…

twitterby feather
Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailby feather

They’re Talking About My Family

talkingaboutusThe U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to strip away financial protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Those people include, tucked away in the millions affected by this legislation, my own family. Here’s what they had to say about me (asthma, allergies), my older daughter (congenital kidney condition and severe menstrual cramps) and my younger daughter (congenital heart defect).

They said we weren’t their problem.

Sorry Jimmy Kimmel: your sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care.” – Former Rep. Joe Walsh, IL

They said we should adjust our priorities.

And you know what, Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. So maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare.” – Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

They said we weren’t “good people.”

My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs, to contribute more to the insurance pool which helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy, and right now those are the people who’ve done things the right way, who’ve seen their costs skyrocketing.” — Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)

They said if we were poor, we wouldn’t want health care anyway.

Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’…There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves…Just, like, homeless people. … I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don’t want health care.” – Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS)

They lied to us.

“JOHN DICKERSON: So I’m not hearing you, Mr. President, say there’s a guarantee of pre-existing conditions.

“PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We actually have — we actually have a clause that guarantees.

“JOHN DICKERSON: Okay, excellent. We got there.

“PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have a specific clause–

“JOHN DICKERSON: Let me ask you–

“PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –that guarantees.”

They said we could just leave.

People can go to the state that they want to live in…States have all kinds of different policies and there are disparities among states for many things: driving restrictions, alcohol, whatever…” – Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC).

They said we didn’t exist.

Less than 10 percent of people under 65 are what we call people with pre-existing conditions, who are really kind of uninsurable.” – House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)

whoareyoureps

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence was “They call me…” and is hosted by the thoughtful, speculative, inspiring Kristi at FindingNinee.com.

twitterby feather
Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailby feather

The Phones Our Insurance Saved Us

Our family, unlike the majority of Americans, has spectacularly good health insurance. It’s provided by an employer, and because of my husband’s combination of high-demand skills, excellent work ethic, and good luck, we’ve had the same coverage for more than a decade. Here’s how it works:

Every two weeks, my husband’s employer deducts $196 from his paycheck for our medical insurance.

Despite that, beginning on January 1 each year, we pay for 100% of the cost of every doctor’s visit, every prescription, every blood test, and every other medical cost until we have spent either $1,500 per person or $3,000 total for our family of four. That means that, until we have reached into our own pockets and paid $3,000, our insurance has not even begun to kick in.

After we’ve spent $196 every two weeks and $3,000 for medical costs, our insurance begins to pay 80% of every bill that comes in. We pay for the next 20% of each bill — a welcome change from the 100% we’d been paying before that.

As a family, once we have spent $7,000 on medical costs, our insurance begins to cover 100% of whatever medical expenses come next. Let’s review, then, the cost of medical care for our family in a year when someone gets really sick:

 

insurance-costs

Continue Reading…

twitterby feather
Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailby feather

Nevertheless, We Persisted

post-surgery-daughterFebruary is American Heart Month. My social media feed is currently split between political postings and photographs of babies and children with scars I recognize all too well — across the shoulder blade in back or right down the middle in front. Parents and grandparents I’ve met online through our shared journey are posting information about their children’s experiences, their families’ grief or triumph, and ways that their communities can contribute toward better outcomes for anyone born with a congenital heart defect, like my vibrant, finally-healthy daughter Sammi.

These images are unrelenting. They drag me back, every time, away from the image of the grinning, singing girl I kissed goodbye this morning and closer to the sick baby covered in wires and tubes. I negotiate the difference in leaps, then think back on what to say to the parents still in the thick of it. How will they make it to my present-day? 

Of course, the other half of my social media feeds are the political posts — assaults on freedom and confusing conflicts everywhere I turn. Truth is under attack there just as it was when I fought for Sammi’s care. Out of the mess tangling over and over itself in the news, however, came a surprise rallying cry intended to shut down a woman’s resolute message. To anyone who has followed US politics, the censure of Senator Elizabeth Warren by Senator Mitch McConnell is likely memorized by now, but for emphasis and clarity, it’s worth repeating:

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

It’s easy to turn this into a rallying cry for women, in general. So often, this is our only path to success, whether we’re discussing the fight for suffrage, land ownership, birth control, or just a seat at the board room table. What many women don’t know, however, is that infuriating as those indignities are, when what is at stake is our children’s lives, persisting is not a choice. It is an instinct. Continue Reading…

twitterby feather
Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailby feather