Completely agree, came here to say this.

I worship the lovely soup.

Agreed, although there are other costs associated with pregnancy than healthcare such as extra food and supplies.

I don’t know if you mean this ironically but parents of a miscarried fetus really should get bereavement leave. It’s extremely traumatic and would take time to recover from.

Medicaid has different income limits for different states. For a family of 3 in Michigan it’s about 2755 per month. If you make less (per household) you qualify for Medicaid. Search “Medicaid Requirements” plus your state. Everything is covered. The 2400ish we bring home a month barely covers our bills, but it’s worth it for Medicaid if you have a chronic health condition (or on our case my spouse, our child, and myself all have serious health conditions). My medication for my pituitary deficiency would cost me thousands a month. My spouse and child have a genetic vascular condition and they need scans every year to make sure they’re not about to die.

Another thing you can do is a Medicaid spend down. I’m not sure how it is for every other state. But let’s say your limit is 3000 for your family but your income is 4000 and your medical bills are 2000 a month. You pay the difference between your income and the limit (1000), and Medicaid covers the rest. I believe you have to have a serious health issue to qualify for a Medicaid spend down.

If you are low enough income to qualify for SSI, Medicaid is given automatically (I think in every state).

In our state of Michigan you apply for Medicaid at DHHS. They have a very easy to use website for a few years now (it was a big hassle before that). Let me know if you have more questions about this.

I loved the labels. Testtomcels.

You sound like an attentive cat carer. Cat was lucky to have you. The point of all this is different for everyone, but cats are a big part of the point for me. Maybe for you, you can give more cats a good life as well. When you’re ready of course, you may need time to grieve.

Anti vaccine rhetoric has an extremely high correlation to religious people. The commentor was speculating about how these people in the past would have felt about the anti vaccine people today. It’s a valid question. People back then didn’t have access to information or access to much real hope; it’s not surprising they were religious.

Usually it means the parents opted for this. Not that anyone deserved this, I’m just clarifying what it likely means.

I used to think “good” kids had “good” parents and vice versa but I learned this isn’t always the case. I should have realized, I was only such a “good” (quiet) kid because my parents scared me. I didn’t feel safe. But some good parents raise genuinely respectful yet also self-respecting kids.

Off the top of my head I can think of buying all the houses that are for sale that I can buy. The next day I start the process of selling them at a quarter of the price I bought them for to families only. No landlords. It would be an opportunity for many families that they would never get otherwise. And I’d still get a fair amount of money if I were able to buy a few houses. I could do the same thing with vehicles probably more easily too. I’d also be able to pay a contractor for upgrades to my house even though those upgrades may take months and a contractor may run off with money (something I did and something that happened during an actual spend down I did in 2019). If I could pay for an expansion on my house I could foster kids.

I keep hearing this and I wonder about how they do this. I mean how to they keep records of every shoplifter? Do the employees recognize the people every time they come in? How many shoplifters can they keep track of? Are they like “ah yeah it’s shoplifter 687, put this video in his file”? Do they bother with people stealing an occasional item like basic clothing or food? Are they watching a single shoplifter over years, like what if they only steal once in a while and it’s low value? I’m curious about this, I’ve never actually heard from anyone who was watched over a period of time and then prosecuted.

What? Why? I can’t walk anywhere in my city and I certainly love the self checkout.

This is an old post, and sometimes little kids do remember being a baby. My kid is 6 now and losing his baby memories but he used to tell me he wants to go back to certain places we went to “before (he) could talk” which started at 2. He described going on a boat to an island, something he had literally only ever done one time as a baby and we didn’t have any photos of. And lots of other things, that’s just an example. He doesn’t remember it now but he did when he was 4.5.

What are some fun or useful things you print? I see a lot of prints online that are toys or action figures, and that’s pretty neat but I usually am not impressed with the quality.

I know this is false because I’ve looked into how it works, and it still makes me feel sick to hear every time. Of course, the truth is bad enough, we don’t need to lie.

If this claim were true (I see comments saying it’s probably biased), 40% is an extremely high number. Baby’s could eat like 10 to 20 (ballpark example figure, I know it varies) jars of baby food every week, it would suck if 4 to 8 of them had toxins. It’s not like it’s a whole fruit you can wash off. I agree with your point about unnecessary gloom in the news, but I don’t think there’s really much of a bright side to 60% uncontaminated baby food. If they took figures like 5% and sensationalized it I’d agree with you more. 60% is barely “most.”

Which is why I think emojis are fine. I just think traditional writing does not qualify as a poor medium.

I have nothing against moderate emoji use that accompanies coherent text, but I disagree that texting is a poor medium for communication. We’ve been effectively writing for thousands of years. It’s a skill that can be difficult for some people, and can take practice to become good at, but that doesn’t make it a bad medium.

My mom (border of gen x and boomer) explained all the references to me when I was a kid watching Futurama for the first time. Honestly, Futurama and seeking out information related to the references (either my parents would tell me or I’d look it up in the 2010s when I really started having access to the internet) is probably the biggest way I learned about past culture. At this point I’m explaining the references to my kid but he really is just so far removed from it. Because they’re from like 4 generations ago and have been referenced so much since. Still interesting but I do feel like it, “hits different” as the teens say.