Wampum

Just before dusk yesterday evening Jonah climbed down out of the junipers he's been spending time in (a lot of time) and ran and hopped a few happy steps back towards the trailer, then stopped and started screaming. He'd stepped on a cholla fragment. Barefoot.

Last year at this site he embedded an inch of yucca spine into his lower calf, and it was a trip to the local clinic and full-pay for the uninsured for the local anesthetic, the excision and extraction, the sutures, the topical antibiotic, and the follow-up for suture removal.

We spent several minutes pulling cholla hairs out of the sole of his foot, and a half-inch long spine fully embedded into his big toe.

It was just a moment of joy turned to bleeding and tears, not particularly difficult, a day in the life of many kids, and for an autistic kid who kicks off his shoes on every occasion, and jumps and hops erratically in the joy of life, not too common -- we watch out for hazards.

But Jonah had MaineCare, which is to say, Jonah had MediCare, as did Sam, and their siblings, and their parents, a year ago, as I still had no long-term work, just some about to end consulting work. The only reason we paid was the hassle of dealing with paperwork when we have to have everything forwarded to us, sometimes several times.

Jonah and Sam may have lost their right to MaineCare, which is to say, MediCare, even though they are still residents of Maine (away on educational travel), because I am now eligible for employer-provided health insurance (provided I move them to Switzerland), and of course every private insurance provider is only too happy to insure people with pre-existing conditions, like a complete disability determination by the Social Security Administration, for Autism ... in something other than real life.

So I'm relieved that health care is now off-the-table for Dems, according to the leading organs of the "netroots", and that Single Payer is no longer an issue for that demographic.