In the Mami’Hood : One Familia, Three Levels of Health Care

No entiendo.
No entiendo how in my little familia, the three of us have three different levels of healthcare.

Today I went it to recertify my kids for their State Child Health Insurance, aka S-CHIP, in NYC it’s Child Health Plus.
La Mapu may have scoliosis and may need a brace. I was hoping that the shift in my income, from partnered parent to single parent would at least move my kids from Child Health Plus into Medicaid so that I could get braces for La Mapu. Medicaid pays for braces, Child Health Plus doesn’t. Maybe I would even qualify for insurance and get an IUD.

I called my local recertification person, with whom I had been playing fun tag with for days. She told me to come in today, right away, since the insurance is set to expire soon for the kids. So I grabbed my papers, put poroto in the stroller and walked 15 blocks to the office. I walked up stairs with a toddler and a stroller only to meet a note telling me that she was having lunch.

Really?

I called her cell phone and told her I was here. She stopped eating and opened the door.

Pero no.

I faced two challenges. The first, because my income barely covers my rent, there was a question if the children could qualify for anything. This was the same problem I faced when I applied for food stamps. Porque I have decided not to apply for cash benefits, and submit myself to that level of hell and humiliation (not that I am putting those down that receive cash benefits. I can survive, barely, without it so one less govn’t intervention, the better), I make too little? I even told the interviewer that I didn’t understand a system that made it so hard for people to get help when they need it. She told me, in Spanish, I don’t make the rules.

The second challenge, was that once I had explained and shown enough income, the three of us, my children and me, all have different levels of health care access.

Miss Poroto qualified for Medicaid.
La Mapu qualified for Child Health Plus. No braces for her.
I qualify for nothing. Thank god I’m not getting laid anyway to worry about getting pregnant.

Next challenge: paying rent when child support hasn’t come in it.

Thank god at least we have food.