Life

School is getting easier yet harder if that makes sense...I'm ok with it. We are sending the girls back to school next fall and I am contemplating getting a part time job so we can take the insurance plan from Kris' work. Right now we are on state insurance and while Wisconsin has a pretty nice insurance plan for low income families, and it's free, it lacks in a lot of areas. We already took the dental plan offered for 20 bucks a month because I couldn't find a dentist who would take the state insurance *eye roll* I could get the kids in but not myself or Kris so when we could take it we did. The biggest downside to our insurance plan is that because it's state, not federally funded, they don't pay a lot and so mental health, while covered, is lacking in variety. We have talked about it a lot and we'd really like to be able to go to different providers that aren't accepting our insurance. There is no mental health in our county except the county people and they are worthless really. Underpaid, overworked and no longer caring about the people they are hired and trained to help. So, all this rambling leads to the fact that Kris' insurance is good, but a little pricey for a one income family, if I worked part time somewhere we could afford it and that would give us more options for mental health especially. The other nice thing is that for doctor's visits, hospital stuff, anything like that we'd still qualify for the state insurance as a secondary so we'd still have no co-pays and all that. Except for mental health, and I'm ok with that.

Now, for anyone who works for the state reading this (Tracy I might be referring to you ;) ) I do know that technically these people who don't accept the state insurance won't accept us as patients with standard insurance and state back up....but if they don't KNOW you have state backup then they won't deny you ;) Yes I've figured out how to cheat the system. There is a lovely law in Wisconsin that if someone qualifies for state insurance a medical/dental provider is not allowed to charge them for their services, which means if someone does not accept the insurance you can't pay cash to get your need taken care of. How do I know this? I had a tooth that was in severe need of a dentist visit before we got Kris' insurance and I called around to at least 20 dentists trying to find someone who'd take the state insurance, no luck, so desperately I asked well, can I pay cash then and this nice lady explained it to me. So from then on I knew to ask if they took the state insurance and if not I'd hang up and call back a few minutes later and ask how much a visit would be. Yeah I cheat. I don't mind though, considering that the only pocket it's hurting is my own. This is one of the areas I hope gets looked into when the new pres is elected and gets ready to set up nationwide health care.

So tell me...what have you been up too?