How The Government Became God

The slogan "In God We Trust" hovering right over The White House on our dollar bills....

Why Government is God (post #1)

Being the family that we are, living as we do and loving the children that we do, I feel the need to enlighten puzzled Christians on why government is the new "Golden Calf", aka God. If you Christians were ever shocked by the overwhelming support by young people of candidates that promise all sorts of free stuff while taking all sorts of freedoms, here is my day to shed some light for you.... Ignorance will no longer be yours to claim by dear believers.

We, meaning our family, have had our house on the market for a few months. We love our house. It sits back a hilly lane surrounded by trees and is within walking distance to a big beautiful lake. It's grey with a yellow front door and flower boxes. It's not fancy, with wooden siding and a wide front porch, but it is cozy and welcoming. However, we are trying to sell it. We are a new breed of people called "medical refugees".

You see, our county is not very well funded by either the school system or the board of developmental disabilities (DD), We live in a more rural area. Our state switched services to a county based system without asking anyone who actually has to use these services. If they would have asked, and legally they are supposed to, we could have pointed out the obvious and multiple reasons for epic failure in 5 seconds. But they did not, and here we are.

I really like the special needs services coordinator for our school district and our DD service administrator. They work hard and they have a genuine interest in my five children with special needs. As much as I like them, they cannot offer our family supports that they simply do not have. Just 5 years ago, before our Governor cut adoption subsidies and services for people who want their right to stay at home upheld, Ohio was one of the best states to adopt medically fragile children. Now, it's one of the worst.

We are trying to somewhat lessen multiple problems by immigrating to a larger, and therefore better funded, county. Doing this will only lessen some problems. It will not solve any of them, and some problems it will not even touch. Our entire state of Ohio has cut DD and Medicaid funding to the point that nursing agencies, medical supply companies, therapy companies and equipment companies cannot stay in business with the low reimbursement rates. Nursing agencies simply cannot afford to send nurses to homes and then pay those nurses a comparible wage and offer benefits similar to that of a hospital. Hospital care is partially funded by research and teaching grants. Homecare is not funded, and we don't have well paid lobbyists as hospitals and nursing homes for children do. So finding nurses to help with our very complicated and machine dependent kids can be very challenging, and with where we currently live, has proved impossible.

If we were to choose to put our kids in a nursing home, it would be fully funded immediately. See the problem? Can you imagine dropping your child off at a nursing home with 4 beds to a room? My kids are no different than yours, my friend. My husband and I sleep in shifts as nursing is cut and our kids require 24 hour care. My husband had to quit his job as a correction officer because of the care needs of our children (and the warden would not let him use his vacation time?!). That's another story.... I digress.

Anyway, to help you understand the gravity of the situation, picture yourselves raising children and you cannot go anywhere as a family because the hours covered with help are not enough in order for us to have help for the time needed. Wheelchair equipped vans are WAY out of your price range and so you struggle to load your kids who cannot walk into two seperate vehicles, both with over 100k miles on them. Your family cannot go to soccer games, recitals, school programs, bible studies or out with friends. Now our state is forcing everyone to switch to managed care. Even though our adoption agreements state that the children will stay on Medicaid, they are forcing us elsewhere. Who is going to fight it? Parents of medically fragile kids have no energy and no money these days, so who is left to fight?

I personally do not have a lot left over at the end of the day after phone calls, because different meds are now not covered, nursing not being covered for some clerical error, navigating the needs of our two typical kids, trying to find funding to fix our wheelchair lift, and funding for a medical bed, wheelchair repairs, generator maintainence, medical supplies, and last but not least, negotiating our water and electric bill. I haven't written on my blog for quite sometime because the continual relentless cuts in support take up all my time and energy.

I am writing tonight because I am starting to realize that if I do not, and quite possibly even if I do, our family, and families like ours will be devastated, quietly, while our good Christian community has no idea why we don't come to church anymore. So this is me, mustering all my leftover energy, letting Christians know how the government became the God of America.

This is post #1. If you want to remain ignorant and really comfy with your marshmallow Christianity, then this is your warning to not read my stuff. If however, you are ready to put your work boots on and flex your Christian muscles, then meet me back here for more. Oh, and get ready, it ain't pretty.