My Diabetic Pre-existence

I usually try to keep the family blog away from politics or culture or other things that might estrange our friends, but sometimes politics and culture walk up and slap our family in the face.
As some of you may recall, I lost my job couple months ago. At that time, I also lost my family's health insurance. It didn't take me too terribly long to find another job with benefits.
Well, I went to my endocrinologist a couple weeks ago for a check-up regarding my type I diabetes, a condition I've had since childhood. I submitted all my new insurance information and paid my $35 co-pay. Yesterday, I got a letter from FMH CoreSource (my benefits company) stating that my health care plan contains a pre-existing conditions clause, and if I don't provide proof that my gap in coverage was less than 63 days, my claim will be denied.
Fortunately, I don't think my gap in coverage was more than 63 days. What really kills me is that CoreSource and Lifetime Benefits (my old insurance) are BOTH subsidiaries of Aetna. So even though I've been funneling quite a few bucks to them out of my paycheck over the last 3 years, they try to deny coverage at the first opportunity.
I asked the gal at CoreSource when the new laws would go into effect that made this kind of thing illegal. She said, "Oh, we won't have to worry about that for a couple more years."
Now, I know that a majority of our friends would place themselves in the reddish region of the political spectrum, and some of them have even done some marching and holding signs as they express themselves. To them, I would say this:
Before you start picketing in support of some of these guys that are promising to repeal the health care reform bill, please just ask those guys which part of the bill is the part that needs to go. I certainly don't understand everything in that legislation, but I know that it's designed to make it more difficult for insurance companies to screw over a middle-class, diabetic dad who is trying to stay alive with his pre-existing conditions while he supports a family of five (By the way, even though I'm still with Aetna, my deductible started over, so I got to pay almost $200 for a 3-month supply of insulin and testing supplies).
If the Republicans want to get into power and make their own improvements, great. Tort reform? Fantastic. Go for it. Interstate insurance commerce? Fabulous. But don't take a giant step backwards just so you can say you were the only ones who made a difference. That's stupid.
That's all.

Angel Poop

We had a pretty good hail storm a few days ago. Actually, we were up in Liberty at the time, but came home to some fairly impressive results. We didn't sustain any roof damage, as far as I can tell, but I know that there were people in the area who lost windshields. How could Obama let this happen???
There's a tall tree with big, broad leaves next to our garage. You see that some of the leaves took a pretty good beating.
Maybe if have a few more storms like that, we can get all the leave raking out of the way now, before it gets too cold.

This is a mitochondrion.

Stools and Schools

Now, I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that our youngest daughter is more awesome than she really is. We haven't actually made any deposits into the pink plastic portal. But she IS clutching herself and saying "PEE PEE" whenever she's gone in her diaper. So this post isn't to announce any early milestones, it's really just to make Aunt Chrissy jealous.

And Lucy had her first day of preschool. It's surprisingly cheap, despite the high teacher-to-kid ratio. Plus, the teacher sent a good page-long individualized email telling all about Lucy's day.

Nose Hair and Heroism

You know, there comes a time in a man's life when he has to take a minute and really think about things. He has to wonder about the direction his life has taken. He has to wonder what brought him to the point where his wife would go to Big Lots and purchase a nose/ear hair trimmer and present it to him with a sheepish look that says, "Hey, you really actually need this. Sorry, buddy."

Dora. Dora the Explorer. Dora, we a-dora thee. Dora the Explora, command us what to Do-ra.

The only way your kids could be cooler is if they actually fly.