The deal. Another deal? So many deals.
A few days ago we got a letter from Job and Family Services saying our Medicaid coverage would be terminated on 4/30/12 because of non-compliance with the reapplication process. I made a confused phone call to Job and Family Services which basically amounted to, "But we were there two days ago. We brought all our paperwork. We were told we were in good shape with Medicaid and Food Stamps even though we had to opt out of TANF." The very nice woman on the phone said the letter was probably mailed before the appointment - because things are so hectic over there right now, what with 1/3 of their offices being shut down thanks to budget cuts and the remaining case load shuffled onto the other offices who, due to budget cuts, were not allowed to hire more people to deal with the additional work, the mailers can get a little off-schedule and mixed up.
I assured her I totally understood this and I hate our governor John Kasich for his retrofuck worship of Scott Walker, because they're the ones who thought severely slashing the mental health budget was JUST SUCH A SHINY PERFECT IDEA, and I'm not upset with JaFS, I just want to know if we have insurance.
"You're good," she assures me. "You totes have insurance. I'm looking at the notes and the notes say you're in full compliance and you're assigned these benefits."
So that's great, and my husband's burgeoning anxiety attack was averted.
Today my husband went to the store to pick up things. Among these things was his seroquel prescription for the next month. He's already out of pills and a little late getting in because my work schedule was unexpectedly hectic this week, due to my only teller coworker having a family emergency that required me to take his shifts. He gets there, they run his insurance.
Cancelled. You may have noticed it is NOT 4/30/12 yet. My husband's anxiety attack is now three times as severe as the first one.
Seroquel, even the generic kind, is $200 for a month's supply. Because we just had to opt out of TANF, we are operating at a little over $450 in DEFICIT every month. We are pulling from our savings until I get my second job, which, as I pointed out before, will mean working twelve-hour days three days a week. We attempted to donate plasma, but apparently I have superficial veins and Husband's meds change his blood chemistry too much.
Job and Family Services is not in on Saturdays or Sundays. The very earliest I could talk to them would be Monday. They will probably require us to undergo the full reapplication process, including submission of paperwork and appearance at mandatory appointments, which could take at least a week.
Husband is going to start physical withdrawal TOMORROW.
Seroquel is a class 2 controlled substance in the state of Ohio. Pharmacies, as far as I can tell, are not allowed to do a partial refill on class 2 controlled substances. Otherwise we'd try buying three or four pills and stretching them as far as we could. My understanding of class 2 controlled is that they must be filled exactly as the doctor prescribed them, anything else opens up the pharmacy to lawsuits. I am going there tomorrow to try to bargain with them anyway.
As a reminder, Husband has severe bi-polar disorder NOS (meaning atypical). Seroquel is basically the foundation of his entire med regimen. He cannot have antidepressants because they will trigger a manic phase. He cannot have anti-anxiety meds because they will trigger depression. At this point we are trying to decide which state is the least dangerous, with the possibility of intentionally medicating him onto whichever of his poles he can survive the longest. It's harder than you'd think. Anxiety is not depression, but when he is anxious he self-harms and is actively suicidal. Depression is terrible, severe depression (he's rated at 4x 'normal' severity, whatever the hell that means besides "Shit, you're DEPRESSED"), but the up-side is he is too depressed and listless to get the energy to commit suicide or cut himself. Unfortunately, our son fits into this equation. My husband is the one watching him during the day, and if he's in a haze of total depression or in a self-harming frenzy of anxiety, the boo will suffer. I have no choice - I have to work, because with a little hard work and effort and shiny bootstraps you can totes get ahead in life.
When I say that health care in the US is fucked up and broken, this is what I mean. Republicans and Libertarians accuse progressives of 'whining' about this shit. I am not whining. I am fully fucking enraged. I am ready to go on a fucking bender of destruction and tear the establishment down around their fucking ears. I want my family safe and healthy, damn it. I want my husband to get the fucking meds he needs to live some semblance of a worthwhile life! (Note here: I mean worthwhile TO HIM, since in both his severe BPD phases he becomes convinced life is not worth living.) I want the bigoted, privileged, smug, retrofuck dipshits who push tax cuts for 'job creators' while hacking away at the social safety net and fighting a racist and destructive 'war on drugs' and otherwise refusing to respect the bodily autonomy of anyone other than straight white able-bodied white men to die in a fucking chemical fire. I want to curse them with boils and sores and flesh-eating viruses. I want to see them rot from the inside. And I want to stand there and tell them, "No, you can't get any help, because YOU'RE FUCKING ASSHOLES who set this system into place and NOW YOU GET TO DIE BY IT, YOU WORTHLESS FUCKING SHIT STAIN. MAY YOUR FUCKING KARMA RETURN TO YOU."
But of course I cannot do this because of responsibilities.
So instead I rage on my journal, and on Tumblr.
And while objectively it doesn't do a bit of good, I love y'all for listening.
Fuck this. I need to pray. I need to go pray so hard.
I assured her I totally understood this and I hate our governor John Kasich for his retrofuck worship of Scott Walker, because they're the ones who thought severely slashing the mental health budget was JUST SUCH A SHINY PERFECT IDEA, and I'm not upset with JaFS, I just want to know if we have insurance.
"You're good," she assures me. "You totes have insurance. I'm looking at the notes and the notes say you're in full compliance and you're assigned these benefits."
So that's great, and my husband's burgeoning anxiety attack was averted.
Today my husband went to the store to pick up things. Among these things was his seroquel prescription for the next month. He's already out of pills and a little late getting in because my work schedule was unexpectedly hectic this week, due to my only teller coworker having a family emergency that required me to take his shifts. He gets there, they run his insurance.
Cancelled. You may have noticed it is NOT 4/30/12 yet. My husband's anxiety attack is now three times as severe as the first one.
Seroquel, even the generic kind, is $200 for a month's supply. Because we just had to opt out of TANF, we are operating at a little over $450 in DEFICIT every month. We are pulling from our savings until I get my second job, which, as I pointed out before, will mean working twelve-hour days three days a week. We attempted to donate plasma, but apparently I have superficial veins and Husband's meds change his blood chemistry too much.
Job and Family Services is not in on Saturdays or Sundays. The very earliest I could talk to them would be Monday. They will probably require us to undergo the full reapplication process, including submission of paperwork and appearance at mandatory appointments, which could take at least a week.
Husband is going to start physical withdrawal TOMORROW.
Seroquel is a class 2 controlled substance in the state of Ohio. Pharmacies, as far as I can tell, are not allowed to do a partial refill on class 2 controlled substances. Otherwise we'd try buying three or four pills and stretching them as far as we could. My understanding of class 2 controlled is that they must be filled exactly as the doctor prescribed them, anything else opens up the pharmacy to lawsuits. I am going there tomorrow to try to bargain with them anyway.
As a reminder, Husband has severe bi-polar disorder NOS (meaning atypical). Seroquel is basically the foundation of his entire med regimen. He cannot have antidepressants because they will trigger a manic phase. He cannot have anti-anxiety meds because they will trigger depression. At this point we are trying to decide which state is the least dangerous, with the possibility of intentionally medicating him onto whichever of his poles he can survive the longest. It's harder than you'd think. Anxiety is not depression, but when he is anxious he self-harms and is actively suicidal. Depression is terrible, severe depression (he's rated at 4x 'normal' severity, whatever the hell that means besides "Shit, you're DEPRESSED"), but the up-side is he is too depressed and listless to get the energy to commit suicide or cut himself. Unfortunately, our son fits into this equation. My husband is the one watching him during the day, and if he's in a haze of total depression or in a self-harming frenzy of anxiety, the boo will suffer. I have no choice - I have to work, because with a little hard work and effort and shiny bootstraps you can totes get ahead in life.
When I say that health care in the US is fucked up and broken, this is what I mean. Republicans and Libertarians accuse progressives of 'whining' about this shit. I am not whining. I am fully fucking enraged. I am ready to go on a fucking bender of destruction and tear the establishment down around their fucking ears. I want my family safe and healthy, damn it. I want my husband to get the fucking meds he needs to live some semblance of a worthwhile life! (Note here: I mean worthwhile TO HIM, since in both his severe BPD phases he becomes convinced life is not worth living.) I want the bigoted, privileged, smug, retrofuck dipshits who push tax cuts for 'job creators' while hacking away at the social safety net and fighting a racist and destructive 'war on drugs' and otherwise refusing to respect the bodily autonomy of anyone other than straight white able-bodied white men to die in a fucking chemical fire. I want to curse them with boils and sores and flesh-eating viruses. I want to see them rot from the inside. And I want to stand there and tell them, "No, you can't get any help, because YOU'RE FUCKING ASSHOLES who set this system into place and NOW YOU GET TO DIE BY IT, YOU WORTHLESS FUCKING SHIT STAIN. MAY YOUR FUCKING KARMA RETURN TO YOU."
But of course I cannot do this because of responsibilities.
So instead I rage on my journal, and on Tumblr.
And while objectively it doesn't do a bit of good, I love y'all for listening.
Fuck this. I need to pray. I need to go pray so hard.