I am
writing this letter to hopefully get an explanation or direction in how the
Child Support Enforcement Agency/State of Ohio/Federal Government (whoever)
plans on dealing with the new crisis they have created for custodial parents.
While
my family is original and rather complicated, I feel it gives a perfect picture
of the chaos that the new health care laws have created. My husband and I are a
blended family, he had one child, I had three and we had one together. When my husband
married me, he also married health care responsibility to three new children;
although if I die tomorrow, not only do those three children no longer have
health care but he has no right to them at all. (This is a different issue, but
one that I feel noteworthy).
I have
three support orders for the children that I had prior to our marriage and my
husband pays support through an order for his child. In every order, there is “court
ordered” attention to ‘the health care needs of the child(ren) named above that
exceed the amount of cash medical support ordered to be paid, if any, when
private health insurance coverage is not available or is not being provided in
accordance with the support order, OR of the uninsured health care costs that
covers the child(ren) named above, when private health insurance coverage is
being provided in accordance with the support order’. Under the older model for
health care, prior to high deductibles, most doctor appointments required a
small co-pay around $20-$50. If I received the co-pay it was great and if not,
it wasn’t a debilitating debt. Now, under my husband’s new employer sponsored high
deductible health care plan, a bout with Impetigo cost us roughly $400 out of
pocket. So we are looking at an additional $200 that month which could have
been used to feed our growing family, that is NOT our responsibility, and that
we most likely will never collect. When I have contacted CSEA to inquire about
what I am to do now, I am told that I need to file in small claims court for
this money. My question is; to what end? Do I have to keep track of all the
bills and file every year? And if so, does anyone really believe this is going
to be an effective means of collecting this money? I have two fathers that choose
not to support their children with license suspensions and incarceration
looming. I highly doubt a small claims finding will ever be paid.
Now one
could say that the health care is included into the child support, but that is
only the monthly fee that my husband has withdrawn from his check by his employer.
When I recently had a case modified, I was told that the CSEA doesn’t deal with
deductibles, so who does?
I’ve
always been a proponent of unionized healthcare. In high school, I was blown
away when they told us that in Switzerland everyone had health care. I also
realize that in order for this to be a reality, someone has to pay for it and
that someone is the middle class, I get it, I really do. What I do not
understand is how law makers could overlook something so broadly spread in our
society. While I do not have actual statistics on hand, I can guarantee that
this effects a large proportion of our population since so many families are
blended. When I hear people complain about the new health care laws, it makes
me cringe inside because they can’t even begin to understand how grievous they
actually are for a family like mine.
I am
very interested to hear if any of the people that represent me know anything
about what I am speaking of and what steps they plan to take to rectify the
issues these laws have created for the population that do work hard and handle
their responsibilities. I feel it is time that the government stops assisting
dead beat parents and starts promoting the efforts of those who do raise and
support their children.
