Affordable Health Care is Not Affordable in Kentucky

I have been in the workplace for over 1/4 of a century, having obtained my first job during the early 1980s. I was once "secure" in the knowledge I could take any member of my family for a visit to our family doctor, without worry of being able to afford it. This is now not the case.
I have personally experienced the decline of my family's health care coverage, especially during the last decade. I work for a fortune 500 hundred company; which initially, offered some the best health benefits in the United States. Since the early 2000s, the cost of my family's benefits has increased each year to the point where I can almost no longer afford to even carry it. I am required to pay almost $100 a week to insure my family. We no longer have an affordable co pay, but am required to fulfill a percentage of the total of each and every visit. For those of us living on a budget, this is almost impossible. Our family can no longer run to the Dr. for a sore throat, a rash or even a mild fever. Our visits now must be only, "emergency in nature." When I read all the "benefits" listed on this government website (check the link below) I realize that by not allowing families to pay an affordable low co pay, they are putting a stranglehold on health care.


http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/kentucky.html


I do believe some of the benefits listed on the government website are good, for example, the ability to keep an older child insured until the age of 26 was a "much needed" benefit for families. However, there needs to be additional thought given to the fact that having a low co pay allows families to have access to a doctor, without worry of not being able to pay a large fee, after a large deductible is met. I currently pay $4,000 a year for family health insurance but we do not receive any benefits until I pay an additional $500 deductible each year.

Families need their co pays returned. Most aspects of Kentucky's health care reform only works for the uninsured, not the insured.

M Smith

Flower Garden

Purple

Pink Blooms

Spring Beauty

Tulips - A springtime treat in Kentucky

Pale Pink

Pink is any of the colors between reddish blue (purple) to red, of medium to high brightness and of low to moderate saturation. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century.

Source: Wiki
Image by MSmith

Man Made Ingenuity - Fort Knox, Kentucky

Footer of an Ancient Bridge
Fort Knox, Kentucky

 The first bridges were made by nature itself — as simple as a log fallen across a stream or stones in the river. The first bridges made by humans were probably spans of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support and crossbeam arrangement. Some early Americans used trees or bamboo poles to cross small caverns or wells to get from one place to another. A common form of lashing sticks, logs, and deciduous branches together involved the use of long reeds or other harvested fibers woven together to form a connective rope capable of binding and holding together the materials used in early bridges.

Source: Wiki
Image by Mary C. Smith

Pale Violet - Kentucky's Simple Beauty

Pale Violet, Viola striata
Image by Mary C Smith

Kentucky Treasure



Viola (US /vaɪˈoʊlə/ and UK /ˈvaɪ.ələ/) is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with around 400–500 species distributed around the world. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere; however, viola species (commonly called violets, pansies or heartsease) are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes inSouth America.
Most Viola species are perennial plants, some are annual plants, and a few are small shrubs. A number of species are grown for their ornamental flowers in borders and rock gardens; the gardenpansy in particular is an extensively used spring and autumn/winter bedding and pot plant. Viola and violetta are terms used by gardeners and generally in horticulture for neat, small-flowered hybrid plants intermediate in size between pansies and violets.

Source: Wiki

Sweet Nectar

Spring has Sprung

Barns of Kentucky

                    Eastern Kentucky - February, 2012

A farm often has pens of varying shapes and sizes used to shelter large and small animals. The pens used to shelter large animals are called stalls and are usually located on the lower floor. Other common areas, or features, of a typical barn include:

•a tack room (where bridles, saddles, etc. are kept), often set up as a breakroom

•a feed room, where animal feed is stored - not typically part of a modern barn where feed bales are piled in a stackyard

•a drive bay, a wide corridor for animals or machinery

•a silo where fermented grain or hay (called ensilage or haylage) is stored.

•a milkhouse for dairy barns; an attached structure where the milk is collected and stored prior to shipment

•a grain (soy, corn, etc.) bin for dairy barns, found in the mow and usually made of wood with a chute to the ground floor providing access to the grain, making it easier to feed the cows.

•modern barns often contain an indoor corral with a squeeze chute for providing veterinary treatment to sick animals.

Source: Wikipedia

Image by M Smith

Bur Oak

 Quercus macrocarpa, the Bur Oak, sometimes spelled Burr Oak.

It is a species of oak in the white oak section Quercus sect Quercus, native to North America in the eastern and midwestern United States and south-central Canada. This plant is also called Mossycup oak and Mossycup white oak.

It occurs from the Appalachian Mountains west to the middle of the Great Plains, extending to central Texas, across southernmost Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, east to the Atlantic Coast in southern New Brunswick and down the coast to Delaware. Bur Oak is the state tree of Iowa.

It is a large deciduous tree growing up to 30 m (100 ft), rarely 37 m (120 ft), in height, and is one of the most massive oaks with a trunk diameter of up to 3 m (10 ft); reports of taller trees occur, but have not been verified. It is one of the slowest-growing oaks, with a growth rate of 30 cm (1 ft) per year when young. A 20-year-old tree will be about 6 m (20 ft) tall. It commonly lives to be 200 to 300 years old, and may live up to 400 years. The bark is a medium gray and somewhat rugged.

The leaves are 7–15 cm (3–6 in) long and 5–13 cm (2–5 in) broad, variable in shape, with a lobed margin. Most often, the basal 60% is narrower and deeply lobed, while the apical 40% is wider and has shallow lobes or large teeth. The flowers are greenish-yellow catkins, produced in the spring. The acorns are very large, 2–5 cm (0.8–2 in) long and 2–4 cm (0.8-1.5 in) broad, having a large cup that wraps much of the way around the nut, with large overlapping scales and often a fringe at the edge of the cup.

Bur Oak is sometimes confused with Overcup oak and White oak, both of which it occasionally hybridizes with.

Source Wiki

Photograph: mcsmith