Learning it the hard way.....

Every day, we learn something.  Usually not something life affirming or even life altering, but we manage to learn something every day.  While most lessons learned are done the hard way... there are some that you learn without much difficulty.

Now, with things that we happen to learn.....  it is not a lonely journey to enlightenment.  The reason is because there will always be someone else that has happened to experience the exact same thing and forewarns others of the consequences or end result.  Of course, it is to one of the many potential outcomes and not the most positive of outcomes there is.  If you are not being the one enlightened by someone else.... you get the rare opportunity to become the one that enlighten others, so trust me.....  there is always a learning experience on the horizon.

I happen to have two stories of enlightenment I would like to share.

Story #1:  The guilt/greed factor.
Recent events resulted in DD's final year of religious education classes (REC) being paid for via "scholarship" from our church because I mentioned the paying for this final year would pose a hardship to our financial situation as well as my sanity because DH controls the checkbook and will find a way to make my life difficult because of the additional expense being paid.  While we could afford to take care of the final year's tuition, it would result in a stressful environment for DD and myself.  I offered to pay the bill in installments, if they were willing to take payments over the course of the year.  Upon the insistence of the Religious Education Director, I accepted the assistance with a heavy heart and then forwarded this information to DH about DD's final year of REC being paid for by the church.  All I got was a "thumbs up" and nothing more.  Apparently, I am the one that needs to feel bad about this for both of us because I saw this as taking advantage of something that should go to a more deserving family to assist in their child's religious educational journey.  This actually kind of felt like taking food out of a poor person's mouth while you have money in your pocket to actually buy your own food.  It is wrong on so many levels, but DH seems to like the feeling of taking from others to benefit himself.  I, on the other hand, do not.  I am just waiting for DH to feel guilty about taking when we can afford to pay and actually offer to do the right thing.

Story #2:  What is cheapest is not always the best.
DH has told me many times that his business is his business and I have no right to even offer a suggestion or opinion about his business (even if he asks for it).  Well, apparently when it comes to expenses (like healthcare costs), I have absolutely NO SAY in health insurance carrier choices.  While I fully understand the importance of having affordable health insurance since his business pays for the health insurance of all its employees (an obvious dinosaur in practices since most businesses have employees pay a small percentage to obtain the coverage and not place the whole burden on the business and the business owners), I happen to have an issue with the decision to what health insurance carrier is made.  For years, we had less than stellar coverage with one company and finally made the right choice and switched to a far better company.  After roughly 4 years with zero issues, DH and his business partner felt it was time to make a change in order to save a few bucks.  I was asked to research with all of the doctors we happen to deal with to see if they accept insurance from these other carriers if there was a change.  Yep, I get the legwork to have my opinions become silent.  I managed to learn that while one of the two insurance carriers is the one we had years ago is sub-par, the other insurance company made that sub-par one look far better than what it really was.  Yep, one of the options is basically owning a hunk of plastic to say we have insurance, but will cover nothing and still leave the burden upon the card holder.  According to reputation (and I got this from each doctor's office), these two carriers do not pay claims in a timely manner, nor do they cover much.  One is far worse than the other and these doctors will only take the PPO version from these companies and even they state it is a hardship to even accept that.  I begged and pleaded with DH to forward this information to his business partner when it came down to deciding if a switch is truly necessary.  Obviously, it fell on deaf ears and now we lost our really good insurance over the worst coverage possible because it was cheaper to obtain.  Really, at who's expense is this saving any money?  Yet again, I managed to learn something and shared the worst case scenario with another and was not taken seriously.  NOW, I have to wait again to see if the lesson gets learned that cheaper is not always better.

Sorry to share this additional part, but I feel that there is going to be a third story that ties in with the previous one.....  Is cheaper better and what price is worth your health.  After getting our new hunk of plastic that states on the back of the card.... "This card does not guarantee coverage.", I felt curious about how this new health insurance company is going to pan out.  I think I actually threw up a little with what I learned.  Did you know that location dictates cost?  Well, not always, but also experience.  With this website to help their members control medical costs, you can research various doctors, their services, the cost per service, the coverage you will get with your new hunk o' plastic and how much you, that hunk o'plastic card holder gets to shell out.  It felt like I was outlet shopping for a new pair of shoes.  You may get the same service (kind-of), but you will get to save a few bucks for a knockoff version of the same thing.  Just place your life in the hands of a person that knows nothing about you with no guarantees that they have enough experience to have more successful results and save a few bucks.  Why go to the best when average (or below average) will cost you less because your insurance now pays less for services rendered.  To me, it seems like getting eye surgery from the dollar store.  Sure, the cost is appealing in this day and age, but would you really risk it?  Oh, this just does not apply to surgeries, physical therapy, or specialists..... you get to compare prices for your prescriptions.  Did you know that there are at least a half dozen generic brands of the same thing, but in all honesty, it is not the exact same thing?  It is kind of like selecting a shade of blue at the paint store.  They are all blue in color.... just slightly different, but hey!  They are all blue so they are all the same, right?  Oh, you need 100mg's of that?  Well, I can save you a few bucks if you buy the double dosage and let you cut the pills in half.  Not sure you can cut them evenly?  No worries, just take the bigger half today and the smaller half tomorrow.... it all evens out in the end, right?  Yet again, another risk taken to health because now we have options to save on our prescriptions like never before!  It is not like we get to pay the same for the pills we have been taking over the past year with this new insurance.  Yep, our new prescription coverage is even less.  Shall we mail order it?  Do we go to this pharmacy or that one?  So what if the wording is different... it is the same thing, right?...  "Metroprolol Succinate or Metroprolol Tartinate...  same stuff with a different spelling, right? I am not a pharmacist nor a chemist, but why not give it a go, right?  What risk is in trying this out?  Death?  HA!  We are all gonna die someday, so it must be totally worth it to switch a tried and true to something I don't know because I want to be buried with my savings on this adventure!!"   Who cares if it is from an unknown manufacturer... they state it is the same thing so it is the same thing, right?  Who needs to go to the best doctor when this other doctor with a lower success rate is charging less... it is the same procedure, right?  Really, it is only my life I am playing with and letting money be the deciding factor.  Heck with DH being as cheap as he is.....  I just might get to collect on the life insurance just a little sooner because I know he will take the unnecessary risks to save a few bucks.
~~This one, my friends, is the one that scares me the most...~~

Really, I know that people need to learn, but why learn it the hard way if someone else is trying to teach you to open your eyes to learn it in an easier manner.  Right now, I feel that my lesson being learned is how to be patient in letting DH to learn it the hard way because me teaching him the easy way is not all that effective.  I gave him my opinion about these things and how they are wrong, but I still end up being the one that takes the brunt of the pressure and figure solutions to the problems that lie ahead.  How can I teach myself to let DH learn the hard way and not feel guilt, remorse, or pity for his inability to listen and learn as well as make him find a solution once in a while.

I think I want to throw up now.  Just this newest pile of knowledge is making me sick and I know better than to see the doctor about this.  We just cannot afford it.  We used to... now we can't.