A few days ago, I wrote about the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the hardships that it imposes on Medicaid recipients.  But there are a few bright spots in the legislation, particularly the Family Opportunity Act.  The FOA enables low-income and middle-income families to purchase Medicaid for their disabled children on a sliding-fee basis.  Currently, many working parents of children with disabilities have keep their incomes artificially low to ensure that their kids will continue to qualify for Medicaid, which sometimes means turning down a raise or a promotion.  The FOA will remove those disincentives and allow parents to increase their earnings without jeopardizing their children’s access to health care

 

The FOA is modeled on existing buy-in models that some states have already implemented, including Minnesota and Wisconsin.  My own family benefited from Wisconsin’s Katie Beckett program when I was a kid.  Without it, my parents might have had to face the very real possibility of surrendering custody of me to the state as the only means of getting me the care I required.  It’s good to know that parents across the country will now have similar assistance available to them.

 

However, it should be noted that the FOA passed because of intensive lobbying by concerned parents over the last several years.  Contrast that with the cuts that will affect the poorest Medicaid recipients.  Politicians don’t want to give the impression they’re voting against working families, but it’s a little easier to punish a group of people that is essentially powerless and voiceless in the halls of Congress. 

I just got a note from Canon saying that they’re going to fix my digital camera at no cost to me.  Also, Shure replaced my $200 earbuds for free…for the second time.  Hooray for companies that actually believe in customer service. 

 

Aargh.  My p-switch needs a new battery.  When it gets low on juice, I have to click twice on letters before they’ll appear on-screen.  I’d better go take care of this. 

I have a bunch of old Wordperfect files on my computer that I haven’t been able to open in a long while because Microsoft Word was all like “Wordperfect?  What the hell is Wordperfect?”  I also have no idea what I did with my ancient copy of WP.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, but I downloaded OpenOffice yesterday, which had no problems converting my old files. 

 

I was just going through some of these files, many of which go back to my junior and senior years in college.  There are a few term papers, letters to friends (not e-mails, but actual letters that had to be inserted into stamped envelopes), and some excruciatingly bad poetry.  I was such an angsty, earnest kid and more than a little self-absorbed.  Like most kids in college, I had a lot of emotional peaks and valleys and those were the times when I seemed to be compelled to write. 

 

I really should delete some of this stuff, especially the poetry.  But if I ever do have any success with writing, I might want someone to shove it in my face once in a while, just to keep me humble. 

I just read an interesting article Psychology Today about sleep cycles and insomnia.  It suggests that it’s usually best to do nothing when dealing with insomnia; it usually resolves itself.  I’m fortunate to never have experienced any major sleep problems.  I’ve become somewhat inured to things like being turned over or being given a nebulizer treatment during the night.  Things like that do wake me up, at least partially, but I’ve trained myself to fall back asleep without much trouble.  I do tend to get my deepest sleep between 5 and 8 a.m., but the whole getting-up-for-work thing gets in the way of that.  Weekends are for catching up and I get crap from some of my nurses for sleeping in until 9 or 10.  I’m actually doing them a favor, though.  My disposition becomes much less agreeable if I have to get up early on a weekend.