health insurance

Failing

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

Here I am again. Nit picking away. Is this a sign of the times, a symbol of my year in Spain, or just another hassle like everything else?

I still haven’t been paid of course. It’s been three months. Not to mention the six months of hell and paperwork and thousands of dollars spent prior to that.

I just need to vent tonight. Bruce and I have spent ten hours today combing through all three girls’ hair, and my own, and finding more lice and nits than you could ever imagine. Add that to the laundry that we’re barely catching up on due to winter weather conditions, no dryer, and a north facing apartment. In fact, we can’t even run our washer and another appliance at the same time without the power going out. Truth is, we cannot run ANY two appliances without the power going out. Who came up with this back-asswards system, where the electric bill costs 150€ a month yet doesn’t consistently PROVIDE ELECTRICITY? I know I’m not the only one with this problem. I’ve heard others discuss similar problems, and on our travels we also ran into electrical snafus.

Add that to the serious lack of WiFi on the Iberian Peninsula, and I’m about done. The Internet rarely works well anywhere. We pay an exorbitant amount of money for ADSL and a phone with a data plan, and it’s designed for someone who doesn’t seem to actually USE it. Bruce tried to PAY for more megabytes today, and the web site locked him out!

The schools… I’ve complained a bit, but let me add on. My middle child has a gift. Not all of us are born with it, but out of my entire household, she is the one who truly has the gift of language. She has picked up more Castellano than the rest of us combined. Yet, the day before Christmas break, she came home with a report card with a failing grade in science, the equivalent to a D in Lengua Castellano, and a D in art (have I mentioned that she’s an artist and actually plans to make a career out of this?)? Her report card came with a note stating that she was pulled out for support for science and lengua. Upon further review (her interpretation), she is pulled out of class for those subjects, then put back in the classes (that she has then missed!) to take the exams, which are of course all rote memorization of facts. Not only that, but I didn’t receive any communication from the school, prior to the report card at the end of the term, either about the support classes or her FAILING.

I could pinpoint many reasons why this country is failing. But I think I’ll stick with lack of lice checks/healthcare, high bills that cover nothing, and schools that overlook gifts for rote memorization of facts, leading to a country filled with people who cannot provide basic services such as electricity, WiFi, or a paycheck.

Blue Marker

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

in blue marker
print better than mine
are the ordered words
Dry eyes
Quiet voice
Follow Directions

all for the special needs boy
who wants to hold his ribbon
rather than fill out formulas

i sit with the card
in front of my lunch
saying the words to myself
in a mantra that keeps me
from telling them what i really think.

Puncture Wound

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

you are the hole in my tube,
tiny as a pin prick,
a puncture wound,
not for one second
able to hold the air
i fruitlessly pump.

your removal is tedious,
leaves road remnants
and layers of unwashable dirt
on my palms and fingertips,
takes an extra set of hands
and real strength to complete.

i haven’t the strength
to discover how you ruined my day,
only the muscles to move on,
to accept that you’re now
lying on the floor of my garage,
a haunting shadow
that tries to follow me everywhere.

Gratitude

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Be thankful that we live here
where we can say what we think
without repercussion from Big Brother
Be thankful that we have each other
to carry the weight when the world
is pressing heavily against us
Be thankful that we have a system
that has held us together for more
than two hundred years.

Be thankful that no one has been
able to take it away
because of our obstinate struggle
to keep it safe (whether it be
with the sword or the mighty pen).

Be thankful, because you never
know when you will have a reason
(a real, non-petty reason)
to lose your gratitude.

How to Live on ONE Salary in Today’s World, Day Three

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

Without a doubt, living on one salary has its challenges, and by far the biggest one for us, or anyone, is health insurance. This is tricky. We have dealt with health insurance over the years using many different methods, none of which are ideal. When I stayed home with the girls and Bruce didn’t have health insurance through his employer, we bought independent health insurance that covered NOTHING. I mean, we were paying almost $400 a month and every time we went to the doctor we had to pay towards our deductible, meaning the full bill. We finally just gave up, because all we were doing was paying, paying, paying, and receiving no benefits.

So when I returned to work as a teacher, I received full benefits, but the costs for the family were exorbitant: upwards of $500 per month. We knew that there was no way we could afford it, so we didn’t even consider it. I know what you’re thinking: what would we do if something tragic happened? Is it worth the risk? No one can answer that question for us; it was a risk we were willing to take at the time.

Luck plays a hand when you are making good choices for your family, I think. Just a few weeks into teaching I came across a flyer that advertised CHP+, the state-funded health care program for children. Of course, with my minuscule salary at the time, we qualified! So since we put our kids on that health insurance, we have an annual bill of a whopping $35 and co-pays of just $5.

Unfortunately, we could not afford to have Bruce on any health insurance until I had been working for more than two years and I received a couple of raises. Even then, it was a struggle to afford, but we managed until they changed the insurance. Now we are back in the same boat, risking the possibility of injury or illness to save money… but what can we do? What else can we cut? It is a terrible choice for a family to have to make, but it is our choice.

Back to our remaining $350… that easily covered the trash, about $20 per month, $80 for the phone bill, $150 for gas, and just a measly $100 for EVERYTHING else. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t always easy. When we had to get the car fixed, when pipes froze, or when some other emergency happened, we had to put everything on a credit card, which I hate to do. But another huge benefit of having one income is a large tax return every year, so whenever we have to use the credit card, we are always able to pay it off with a portion of our tax return. And we never, in the four and a half years of living on one salary, have had to pay off more than $1500 on our credit card, leaving us with spending money!!

Yes, spending money! We have actually been able to take at least two vacations every year since this shift in salaries. One year, when I gave birth to baby number three and had an enormous amount of medical bills related to this, our tax return was so generous that we were able to take the whole family to Mexico for a week.

Vacations aside, what we have truly purchased with our one income is priceless. With a full time dad taking care of the children and the home, the errands, the grocery shopping, the cleaning, and cooking dinner every night, I do not endure the harried existence of many working mothers. And because of the multiple weeks of vacation time and holidays a teacher has, we have more family time than almost any other family I know. So, despite all the sacrifices and stresses we have faced over the years, it has been worth every minute of worry and every penny not received. We have a stronger, calmer, healthier, happier family, and no one could ever put a price on that.