Pictures and Presidents

[altarflame]

This isn't the best picture to showcase it, but Elise was looking REALLY cute when we got back from that Mardi Gras thing last week.


At the theater to see Wizard of Oz - Ananda, Karen, Jeffrey, Isaac, Joanne, Aaron.








Yesterday Grant got a work order down in the Keys, so he left VeriFone and we all went down and when he was done, went over to Anne's Beach. While he was working, the kids and I were just hanging out and decided to go get some floats.

We decided to get Extreme Floats.

It was not easy to cram them in the van, even with the sliding side doors.

I LOVE this picture :)



















Then today, Nancy came and hung out with us - which was great. Ananda ran to her with arms thrown wide as soon as the door opened. She came in with big bags of presents, and I made a big lunch of veggies and chicken and things with orzo. She brought an uber-crunchy boxed mix for monkey bread that I baked this afternoon, too, so yummy. It was so awesome to just sit and catch up. There've been phone calls and emails - a dozen of each at least - since I left Boston, but it's different, you know? Especially with both of us being too busy to ever really go in depth through long distance communication. It's good to be "friends" now, too, and not have her keeping me at Professional Midwife Level Conversation, i.e., not saying anything that would be unprofessional about anyone or anything else. My sister came and met her. And I managed to get her to agree to pictures knowing I'd post them on my blog, which she sees as famous or something because within her circle of birth people, apparently everybody reads.


Elise loves her. And she cried when Elise walked to me, and waved to her, and backed down our step to the dining room, and all the other little things Elise does that are not just normal but double-take advanced for a 9 month old. She's holding her, here, and that's the back of Brian's head down in front. Look at this organized crowd :p



Grant got the job I talked about a few days ago, except the day shift, which is an added bonus. It's every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and every other Wednesday, 12 hour shifts (7:30am-7:30pm). $38k a year plus benefits after some period or other passes, with hours that will allow him to keep VeriFone, and the bank, and have whole uninterrupted days with us.

I don't know much of anything about Mike Huckabee except that he was on the Colbert show tonight, and cracking up with some double entendres as he played air hockey to try to "win Texas". That might be enough for me O_o I suppose I have to look up some more stuff. I've avoided bringing it up here thus far, but I am really anti-socialist policies. I want to keep my homeschooling freedoms, and I want women to have more birth freedoms, and I even prefer my own personal healthcare situation (choosing to pay out of pocket for our ped of choice who rocks, fighting for Medicaid but getting it in the end for Elise, her and I both getting all the emergent care we needed with bills coming later, all of it) than what I've heard of government health care. I really really REALLY like SMALL government more and more, the more I learn, even when it means that things I'm "Against" get to be done/legal/whatever (like abortion or guns). I don't want a draft, I don't want insane property taxes and death taxes on estates you leave to your kids and on and on, I don't want anyone up in my business. I'm a freewheeling libertarian Ron Paul supporter. I think :p Whenever I hear Obama or Hillary talking, they sound so freaking socialist and the end result is inevitably peoples' freedoms being taken away, in ways that scare me. It's like everyone's forgotten what we all learned in high school history - communism only works in theory. Capitalism DOES take care of (almost) everyone in the end because of the trickle-down effect wealth in a nation like ours has, and it gives everyone the opportunity to strive and reach further and achieve that American Dream if that's what they're after...

I think of really liberal, progressive areas of our country where people like Hillary are popular, like New York City, and it's like...people in New York have no birth freedom at all. They imprison midwives, Nancy told me when I was in Massachusetts that if I were to go into labor while she was in Syracuse for the ICAN conference, she'd have to cross back over to do my birth. They have all these seemingly great initiatives in place for new low income mothers, too...where they strongly discourage co-sleeping and widely teach that you must vaccinate and all this. Moms who do things in "unusual" ways that are ignorantly thought to be unsafe are reported to CPS. Homeschooling is extremely rare, it's just...crap, as far as I'm concerned. That's not what I want.

But of course you can't find a likely candidate who is small government AND cares about the environment (which I do). Enter Ron Paul. Who is not likely :/

I have to wash ye olde dishes.

Comments

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about socialized medicine. What you said here:
"choosing to pay out of pocket for our ped of choice who rocks, fighting for Medicaid but getting it in the end for Elise, her and I both getting all the emergent care we needed with bills coming later, all of it"

Is the same freedoms I experience, except I don't pay for it. I get emergency care when I need it, I choose my doctors (within reason: I mean sometimes their practices are just plain full so I have to look elsewhere). I don't battle about tests, and doctors don't have to bend over backwards for my financial situation nor are they more likely to give me more if I was well-off. It's equal treatment.
Alternative care like most chiropractic, acupuncture, etc you still have to pay for - unless you have a referral. Referrals from other doctors can get it all covered under government insurance. Very awesome. If we didn't have socialized medicine here, I'd be dead - there are just too many times in my life that being able to get through without hassles was a savior for my health problems. I'm thankful for it.

I would LOVE to see everyone else in America have that freedom, too. So I see it totally differently!
Also, the more I hear OBama speak, the more I desperately want him to win. I don't think he will, but I wish he could. Everything he has said inspires me, and I have *never* cared about USA politics as much as I care about who gets the democratic lead.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

You probably wouldn't have been denied or delayed for care under the American system, either, most likely--they give care first and then bill afterward, and if you can't pay the bill, THAT's when problems arise. So you'd probably just be indebted, not dead.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

If you've ever been in serious, serious debt you know that sometimes it's just about as awful. :-/

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I totally, completely disagree...I grew up consistently in serious, serious debt (evictions, moving every 6 months, utilities turned off regularly and sometimes for awhile, cars repo'd, living off ramen, etc) and I would never make that comparison.

I know some people really do have major freakouts about debt and I'm sure some people have probably committed suicide over it, but I'll never understand that. If there are bill collectors calling, my mom's response was always to just casually unplug the phone and go back to her book or show. So I guess that shaped my feelings to some degree.

To me death is THE END of everything and anything less allows life to go on, to a greater or lesser degree.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

I guess we reacted to it differently. When I was a kid, being deep in debt and being so poor you were a month from streetbound most of the time was really scary and there was just *no way* my mother could hide that from me.

Death can't even escape debt, Even if you commit suicide it gets passed on to someone else. :-P

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to add, I'm not saying serious debt doesn't suck, that it's desirable, or that a lack of debt isn't obviously superior: I just think it's an important distinction to show that in America right now, you CAN get the care you need, and that you can live with debt even if it's not as great as living without debt. A lot of people seem to be saying things to the effect that you would die of cancer here without insurance, or something, and that is not how it is. In truth, medical bills don't even effect your credit the way other debt does, so while you may have a harder time getting a mortgage, or a major credit card, it will still be as easy to rent an apartment and almost as easy to buy a car. It's not "crippling", the way that other kinds of debt can be - my father owes a hospital in the Keys hundreds of thousands, and his girlfriend owes over a million, but they can still rent a duplex and go lease a car, because they make small monthly payments ($50 for him and $25 for her).

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

Then I am totally confused as to why they bill you in the first place and why socialized care would be so different. :-P If it doesn't matter AT ALL whether or not you pay... then wtf? You make it sound like the honour system.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

It IS almost like the honor system, though...at least where I live. My brother in law works in the ER and down here ERs are pretty much treated as free clinics. Anytime I was sick as a kid and didn't have Medicaid, my mom just took me to the ER, and I did the same thing twice with Aaron before we found a reasonably priced ped. And, I am kind of ashamed to say it now, but I don't even know how much it cost or when the last time I was billed for it was. I got a credit report last summer and that wasn't on it at all.

I am friends with a pediatric oncology nurse, and yesterday I referenced this thread and asked her, am I wrong? Are there kids getting diagnosed with cancer and then dying because their families can't pay? And she said she supposes she can't speak for everywhere in the country, but she really can't imagine it ever happening based on what she sees. She told me a story of a kid she just gave chemo to this past week, whose father just got deported back to Mexico...said the rest of the family (5 kids and a single mother) are sharing a small $200 a month apt with other people, it's very obvious they'll never be able to pay. But the kid is still getting chemo every 3 weeks for the next year because it's the only chance he has - they don't even bring up payment with the mom.

Nobody in Boston once said one word to me about Elise's NICU costs, even though Florida Medicaid didn't agree to pay for those Massachusetts bills until weeks later.

These things are why I think the "Crisis" is greatly overstated. When I think of the government being involved, I think of people trying to force well baby visits, and mandate vaccines, and I remember how I've been threatened and pressured into surgical "birth". You know a little bit about how this country operates on a government level: I don't want them in charge of how, where or when my kids or I see doctors.

I can understand why some people disagree, but I don't think it's really that hard to understand my perspective, even if you see it another way.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Also, to this...it's a sort of unwritten, common knowledge thing, at least in hospitals I've been to, that they charge such outrageously high amounts because most people never pay, and most insurances underpay. The few people/plans that pay full amounts are paying for people who pay too little/nothing at all. Which is I guess not really all that different than the rich paying taxes that let the poor go for free, I am just afraid of the beuracracy that will go along with that.

When I had Medicaid for Pregnant Women, I had women calling me and even coming to my house regularly, asking who my doctor was, when my next visit would be, if I had had my ultrasound yet, etc - now since Elise has Medicaid, I get letters telling me it's time for her shots, it's time for her 9 month, and giving me a doctor's name, address and number as well as notifying me that the appt has already been made and it's such and such time and date. It just freaks me the fuck out, it's why (among other reasons, like the shitty doctors and the shady coverage) my other kids don't have Medicaid and we just foot the bill.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

That would freak me out, too. Although the vet often does that with our cats if they were on some sort of scheduled visit thing, but they don't do a follow up if you ignore the postcard...

Thing is, I have never heard of that kind of thing happening here.
If I get referred to a specialist they often call ME and tell me when an appointment has opened up, but other than that I don't get any mail from any crazy-ass doctors telling me I need to bring my kids in, or get shots.
All your fears seem really founded, but at the same time I have never heard of them happening like that here in Canada or in the UK... That's just not what socialized medicine is about at all. IT seems like you've got this idea like it's some sort of military/government control operation and really the government involvement vs. me stops at whether or not I have a bill to pay.
Waiting lists that you hear about seem more likely due to population. I mean if we have one allergy specialist in the province because NO ONE ELSE went to school for it then of course you're going to wait 6 months for an appointment. But I don't see what that has to do with the government, there were only x many people in a province with only x many going to medical school, who actually were interested in being an allergist.
Canada's entire population is something like the size of California, or less - I can't remember which.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of money in it. My general practitioner had a six million dollar home, for chrissakes. And he was single income, no inheritance: they were mormom and his wife was a SAHM to their seven kids. He now runs the practice out of his home so he can be closer to his kids.
Specialists get paid way more than GPs do.

No, it shouldn't have the same issues of California. Is California's population ration 1.3 per km?
There may be as many people in California as there are in Canada, but there are way less in each individual province.

[the-leh.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.