Car Seat law again

How is it that some people can argue with the laws of physics, and countless studies which prove something quite handily? These are people whom I had previously thought were at least somewhat intelligent... at least I didn't think they were complete idiots... Now I've changed my mind.

Look, a 5-point harness is safer for anyone in a crash than a 3-point seatbelt. When you distribute a force over 5 points, the impact is lighter on any given one of those points than it is if you distribute that same force over 3 points. I think I learned that on day one of the most basic college Physics course I ever took. It should be common knowledge. It's common sense! Then when you see a video showing a crash test involving one dummy in a seatbelt and another in a 5-point harness, and upon impact, the dummy in the seatbelt is practically thrown out, whereas the one in the harness barely moves, how COULD you still say that your kids are just as safe in a seatbelt as they would be in a harness?

Hey, my kids are worth the extra effort it takes me to extended harness and extended rear-face. Sorry yours aren't to you.... Sucks to be them.

I mean, I'm not saying I've never been hasty to move my kid on to the next stage. I forward faced Erin at 12 months. I moved her into a booster at the age of 4 1/2, and took her out of a harness at 5. That was before I knew the benefits of extended rear-facing and extended harnessing. I had never even heard of these things until I was pregnant with Orren, and started reading up a little more on the best car seats, and deciding what types of things we wanted to get. That's when I kept seeing these terms, and started to do a little research. The research is pretty damned indisputable. In a crash (which is the important part of a car seat's job) a rear-facing passenger moves as one with the seat, thus eliminating whiplash, concussions, and spinal injuries. A forward-facing harnessed passenger does better in a crash than a 3-point belted passenger due to better distribution of force, and more anchors holding them in place. This is SO OBVIOUS. It is INDISPUTABLE. Yet people argue with me about it, and make up excuses for why they can't rear-face their 1-year-old, or harness their preschooler. No, you just don't want to. There's no reason you can't. If you don't want to, SAY you don't want to, but be honest. You are choosing to put your child in danger every time you drive because you don't want to rear-face your toddler who is within weight tolerance for that, or spend the extra couple hundred bucks for a seat that would harness your elementary schooler.

Absolutely sickening. People like that ARE chicken wire canoes in the truest regard. As water flows into a chicken wire canoe rendering it useless, the holes in these people's logic act similarly.

And the chicken wire canoe of the day is.......

TRICARE!

Yes, Tricare... that lovely insurance we get through the Army. Now, I'm not one to complain about it in general. I know our coverage is way better than that of most civilian insurance, and since we don't even have to pay monthly premiums for this coverage, we really have nothing to complain about compared to a lot of people, but with that being said, Tricare has dropped the ball.

When we went to the birth center yesterday, the lady who takes care of the financial end of things called us back to her office, and told us that Tricare had screwed up on paying for like a dozen recent births, and Orren's was one of them. See, the plan that the kids and I have is called Tricare Standard, and it works like civilian insurance, except that we don't pay monthly premiums, and the deductible is WAY lower than any civilian policy out there. Beyond that, it's pretty, well, standard. They're supposed to pay 80%, we're supposed to pay 20%. So for my care, and Orren's birth, they were supposed to pay $3300, leaving us to pay $825. What REALLY happened is that they paid out $1100, which is obviously a lot less than $3300, and you can imagine what that does to our share. Nothing good.

Well, we are actually not being billed for that amount right now since this, apparently, is a common glitch in the Tricare system. We just have to call Tricare, and argue with them until they pay what they're supposed to. This has been going on, on and off, for the past three years. You'd think they'd have fixed the glitch by now, but no...

The thing that slays me is that Tricare pays out just fine on tens of thousands of births each year. Most of those take place in military hospitals, and most of the remaining take place in civilian hospitals. These, they pay out on without a hitch, but for the other 1% of us who choose to have our babies in birth centers or at home, they don't pay out worth a crap, and we have to fight them over it. This is extremely ironic to me since, on average, an uncomplicated hospital birth (and mom's care with an OB/GYN) costs about twice what my care and Orren's birth did. Of course, when you take into account the sky high c-section rate in this country, and how much more that costs, it's more like 3x or 4x as much as what me and Orren cost. You'd think the insurance companies would be giving incentives to anyone willing to avoid the hospital racket and save them several grand, not screwing us over.

Of course, that would make entirely too much sense.

The name

In the Army, we have very creative ways of saying things. "Chicken wire canoe" is a synonym of "soup sandwich", "football bat", and the like. In other words, it is a nicer way to say that something is completely screwed up. Anything can be a chicken wire canoe. I personally have heard the term used for everything from people, to vehicles, to direct and lawful orders. The only thing that is for sure is that life in the Army, more days than not, has at least some elements of the chicken wire canoe, and hence, I give you this aptly named chronicle of the daily life of the prior-service wife of a US Army Staff Sergeant, and the family thereof.

We're just regular people with funny names, living the dream in our chicken wire canoe since 2004.