Thread: Interesting tidbit.

My kids are on CHIP, and I'm not ashamed of it. My DH's benefits from work stink. They are very expensive for family coverage and have high deductibles. The state has excellent coverage, and I appreciate having the ability to take them to the doctor (or ER in an emergency) and not having to worry if I have the money to pay for it. We also qualify for free lunch because we adopted special needs children -- I just found out this year. It's a blessing for us. We have worked our way out of consumer debt, but DH's job isn't super well-paying, and my hours have been cut in half (only 11 hours a week now). I'm plenty happy making lunches for the kids, but they prefer hot lunches most of the time.

Deb, I hear ya on crappy insurance benefits. Ours are not awesome and we did look at it when I was pg with the twins, but we did not qualify when we only had two kids, but now we would. Thankfully though dh got a new job with better benefits and better pay too, just in time, though our medical bills from my hospital bedrest will probably take us another two years to pay off. lol

Deb I don't think anything is wrong with those programs, I glad they have them to help families that are in need of it. I wish it was easier for people to get them. The free lunch is great if you need it, some kids in the inner city that is the only meal they get! My mom was a social worker for Cleveland Ohio for many many years and kids would go without if they did not get the free lunch. Not all of cleveland is bad but where they have the public housing and places like that those kids are greatful for a hot meal.

We had to fight job and family services to get help for my youngest when he was born and we really needed the help after our private insurance would no longer cover him. My husband doesn't have an awesome job it gets what we need but he is in Law School and one day will have a great job but we really needed the help and the state was not helpful at all. I just wish at least in Ohio they would change somethings so when something like that were to happen to someone else they could get help and not fight for it.

I always toss those forms as well because I can afford to make their lunches every day, thank God! That being said, $90K a year isn't really a whole lot when you take everything into account these days. DH and I together make around this, and we are far from rich. Between child support, student loans, mortgage, two cars, and every other bill that can possibly be factored in, we are barely making ends meet. Our problem is both of our incomes have been sliced in half thanks to this economy, but we still have the same amount of bills as we had when we were making good money, which is why it hurts so much. But of course, we make too much money for any type of help, like EOB (they help with day care costs) or anything else... so it's a catch 22.