Gov. Tim Pawlenty Can Eat My Undies!!

I'd have him kiss my ass, but that's a bit too erotic for the likes of him!

I just wasted my precious afternoon on the phone with MNCARE, our state's health insurance pool for the uninsured. Our yearly evaluation was the middle of September. Today I was informed that L and I were no longer eligible because we have too many assets. Z would continue to be covered for $40/month, as he is under 18.

MNCARE is a wonderful system, and has been operating in the black since it's inception. Last year Gov. Pawlenty took it upon himself to appropriate(steal) MNCARE's funds to balance the state's budget. This forced MNCARE to raise it's eligibility requirements and knocked many people out of the program. At last count over 30 people have died as a direct result of losing their coverage.

As a result of Pawlenty's thievery, we can now have only $20,000 in assets. This includes our $800 savings account, $5000 in savings bonds, $700 for our 14 yr old second vehicle, $3000 for our 8 yr old pop-up camper, and $14,000 cash value in the whole life insurance policies that L and I have been paying on for 20 yrs. According to my calculations, this puts us over by $3500. According to MNCARE, we're over by $1500. OK, they must have given us the benefit of the doubt somewhere.

Keep in mind that our combined yearly gross income is $35,000(yes, this includes my tips). We live in a depressed area(I plan on posting on this at a later date) and are able to live quite cheaply. Now we're being penalized for living within our income and managing to squirrel away a few thousand in savings. We don't have an IRA (which counts as an asset too) and know that we will never be able to fully retire. According to Social Security, if we continue making what we do now, we will be eligible for $700/month apiece at age 65(66 1/2 for me). I'm a genius with our household budget, but we'd never make it on $1400/month.

The MNCARE worker told me that we'd be reinstated if our assets decreased by $1500. No problem, I told them. The bank closes in 30 min and I'm closing our savings account and cashing in some savings bonds. THEN I'm going on a shopping spree. I'm going to buy all the things I've been scrimping on for the last 28 yrs! By the end of the day we're going to have all new sheets, towels, blankets, winter jackets and a new 8 hp snowblower(to replace the 14 yr old, 5 hp snowblower that we've been holding together with baling wire).

I made the trip to the bank. I closed the savings account and cashed in 2 bonds. We now have $2555.55 in an envelope in my underwear drawer. I didn't go on that shopping spree. I plan on having my Dad purchase bonds in his name, with me as the beneficiary. MNCARE is satisfied and we're reinstated. In the future, I guess I'll be burying any extra money we have in ziploc bags in the back yard.

Pawlenty's campaign promise was to not raise state taxes. He has kept his promise by drastically cutting state funding of such frivolous things as schools and local fire and police departments. As a result, city and county property taxes have skyrocketed and MNCARE has drastically reduced it's enrollees. By the way, Pawlenty hired an architect to develop plans for a state funded professional football and baseball stadium. We all know that professional sports are much more important than the 30 lives that have been lost!