Grim times ahead
Oct. 11th, 2009 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7So I got rejected for Medicaid. I made on average $10 too much per week, because I had an abnormally high paycheck (79 hours in two weeks, because it was two weeks where other employees were on vacation). The Social Services person was very nice about it, and said to withdraw my application now and reapply once that abnormally high paycheck is no longer recent enough to be counted. There was another employee vacation, though, so I'm waiting in some suspense, since I again had more hours than normal to cover for her-- my paychecks are two weeks at once, and have a week lag time, so I won't know how much I made... well, it's going to take me a month just to get the paycheck and start the paperwork, and once I start the paperwork it may take another month, and if I get another abnormally high paycheck it's all fucked and I have to start over again.
Which means my health insurance, which doesn't cover, as you may remember, ambulances, mental health, vision, dental, prescription drugs, or the first $5000 of medical expenses I incur, will be costing me a week and a half's pay each month.
And oh yeah, it means I don't get any help on that emergency room bill from August-- I have to come up with $700 for them somehow. Medicaid would've covered it, but now by the time I have my next interview that will be too old for their retroactive help to apply. So I'm 100% on my own there.
Add onto that the fact that Z had precisely 3 billable hours in the entire month of September-- and wasn't warned this would be the case, but rather was strung along all month, so he didn't know to look for other clients in the meantime-- and, well, I'm going to have to be supporting him a little while. He doesn't get unemployment, since he's an independent contractor. (He also doesn't get health insurance. And he gets paid so infrequently he can't prove his income, really, so there's no kind of social services of any kind he can seek out.)
On a little under 3/4ths of my part-time $1-over-minimum-wage income, since over a quarter of it will be going to this useless health insurance that means I don't get new glasses, I don't get to maybe see about going on some antidepressants (I'm not saying I even want to, I just want the option of discussing it with someone knowledgeable, you know?), I don't get to go back on birth control even if I wanted to (oh, that's not covered either), and if I break my leg well, I'm in bankruptcy.
So it's going to be a very grim winter, and I don't know how much Christmas I'll get to have-- it might not matter anyway, since I'm working retail so it's not like I'll get to spend any holidays with any family of any kind. I suppose it's best I face that now.
But if I seem rather down and grumpy, that's why.
Which means my health insurance, which doesn't cover, as you may remember, ambulances, mental health, vision, dental, prescription drugs, or the first $5000 of medical expenses I incur, will be costing me a week and a half's pay each month.
And oh yeah, it means I don't get any help on that emergency room bill from August-- I have to come up with $700 for them somehow. Medicaid would've covered it, but now by the time I have my next interview that will be too old for their retroactive help to apply. So I'm 100% on my own there.
Add onto that the fact that Z had precisely 3 billable hours in the entire month of September-- and wasn't warned this would be the case, but rather was strung along all month, so he didn't know to look for other clients in the meantime-- and, well, I'm going to have to be supporting him a little while. He doesn't get unemployment, since he's an independent contractor. (He also doesn't get health insurance. And he gets paid so infrequently he can't prove his income, really, so there's no kind of social services of any kind he can seek out.)
On a little under 3/4ths of my part-time $1-over-minimum-wage income, since over a quarter of it will be going to this useless health insurance that means I don't get new glasses, I don't get to maybe see about going on some antidepressants (I'm not saying I even want to, I just want the option of discussing it with someone knowledgeable, you know?), I don't get to go back on birth control even if I wanted to (oh, that's not covered either), and if I break my leg well, I'm in bankruptcy.
So it's going to be a very grim winter, and I don't know how much Christmas I'll get to have-- it might not matter anyway, since I'm working retail so it's not like I'll get to spend any holidays with any family of any kind. I suppose it's best I face that now.
But if I seem rather down and grumpy, that's why.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 08:45 pm (UTC)You worked 79 hours in two weeks, yet you're only part-time? I know you were covering for two people, but geesh. Honestly, you're better off getting a full-time job if you're working that much. At least you'd get benefits, yanno? I just hate to see you work hard for pretty much nothing.
As far as your $700 emergency room bill, call the hospital and work out a payment arrangement. As long as you're making payments, they'll stay off your back. Besides, even if you only pay them a few dollars a month, they can't send you to collections (that I'm aware of).
See you at practice. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 10:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's my plan with the hospital-- start making payments when I can, and hope to keep creditors at bay. It's just really depressing; if I'd had one more paycheck, that high one wouldn't have been in the four most recent weeks, and so I'd've been fine, and they'd've covered that ER bill too. But I don't get to choose these things or make the rules.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 10:19 pm (UTC)Emergency rooms should be able to put you on a payment plan if you can't pay all at once. I paid off an ER visit I had to go to with no insurance at about $50 a month for 2 years. Was a pain in the ass, but doable.
Just a couple thoughts...