A huge relief.

Finally after 3 long months of having no health insurance, as of March 1st, we have our MN Care, Blue Plus ins. back!!! yippee!!
We got the cards in the mail today. It's been very overwhelming not having health insurance right at the time we needed it most. Hannah was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 3 days after we lost our insurance. Why did we loose it?? I hate to place blame on anyone ever, but Steve wouldn't do/get our 2007 taxes done, despite my many attempts to help him, motivate him, and just plain tell him that we'd loose our health ins. by the end of November if they were not submitted to the state for renewal of our insurance. How do you convince a stubborn husband?? You can't, as I found out.

We are on MN Care because Steve is self employed, and we've been on this insurance for about 5 years. It's always a hassle to renew every year, but the insurance we get is great, and worth the hassles, we'd never be able to afford any other type of insurance, and mostly everything is covered.

So when Hannah was in the hospital, things couldn't have gotton worse. We had about $10,000 in bills to cover now, plus the cost of taking care of a diabetic is one of the highest costs in regards to supplies. Talk about stress, much less having your child dignosed with a lifelong condition. We wouldn't have needed to have to worry about health insurance at that time, but because of a lesson learned, we did worry...ALOT. I cried about it, even before I knew about Hannah's condition, I just couldn't understand my husbands intentions about our family and the health ins. we NEEDED. This all happens at the worst time of year for us, when tensions and frustrations are at it's peak anyway becasue of lack of work for Steve, therefore lack of money. This added on top of all that, we had to dig deep for strength. I basicly handed it all over to God's hands, knowing I was doing all I could to stay strong and positive. It's the only thing that got me through. If I would have given in to my worries and anger, who knows where I would be.
I am so happy that Steve worked with me to remedy the situation, and am glad to say that things are looking better. We got Decembers bills covered through an emergency Medical Assitance program for Hannah only. At first we were denied coverage, but when they only looked at Decembers income instead of the entire 2007 income, we were able to be covered month by month. Also we found out MN Care will go back and cover January and February clinic visits and expenses but we have to pay a small addional premium, which we should be able to do here soon.

Have we learned our lesson??...After all of this, I hope so, but am still trying to get Steve motivated yet again to do 2008 taxes. He's had plenty of time lately, but still has choosen to put it aside for now. I have done my part in totaling up stuff and organizing all the paper work, now it's his turn. Pray that he gets this task done soon, we may be able to submit the 2008 taxes to MN Care to possibly lower our premium. Our premium has doubled now because 2007 was a year where our taxes told us we made a few extra bucks. Hard to believe, but the taxes in 2007 weren't too nice to us.
Anyway it's a huge relief to have this unnecessary burden off our shoulders, and now we can focus on Hannah's care, and the health care of the entire family.