The Coffee Bug Company
Olivia posted this in Olivia's Diary, Personal Posts, Uncategorized
Things have been a little quiet on the range. We’ve been parked at Pecan Grove in Austin longer than expected while Nathan recovers from an emergency appendectomy. It’s been painful but he’s going strong 10 days later, on a healthy diet including probiotics and potions of rooibos tea.
Life has been full of surprises lately, and a few days ago this beautiful old relic of the hometrucking past came rolling in right next to us. I couldn’t believe my luck! It’s been a dream of mine to live in one of these beauties for as long as I have dreamed of living in a treehouse, but I never expected to actually see one from the 70’s still on the road.
The suspension is shot so these days it has a full entourage. The current owner is a really lovely, interesting guy who trails it to nearby festivals and runs a little coffee shop from it. His own matching hand-made truck top serves as his home on these occasions, his dog the most wonderful companion. Oh how I squealed with disbelief when I saw it for the first time! My heart raced. The add-on body is still in solid shape, and with a few repairs and replacements I could see her back on the road… me behind the wheel! hee hee
If you’re also nuts about housetrucks and housebuses, check out housetrucks.com.
Rene
11 Apr 2009 8:39 pm
Ouch. Get well soon Nathan, so sorry.
Just out of curiosity, do you guys have health insurance?
Olivia
13 Apr 2009 9:32 pm
Thanks Rene! Sorry for the delay – its been a hectic week. Nathan was readmitted – post op complications :( And no, we don’t have health insurance… somewhat related to that is Nathan’s recent article: Why Your Credit Score is a Joke OR How to Be Alive
Rene
16 Apr 2009 9:43 am
Olivia, I’m so sorry. Thanks for answering. We are scared, we have such crappy insurance, and are ready to just chuck it since we’d have to file for bankruptcy if we ever needed to use it ($10k deductible before anything’s covered).
Things can only get better, that’s what I try to tell myself when my week gets blown to hell.
Thanks for pointing me back to Nathan’s post. I missed that, since I don’t subscribe to that blog. Nathan’s story is so much like a lot of people I know, I really appreciate the honesty in which we wrote about it.
It’s interesting, because I was just thinking the other day about how the whole credit game is a load of crap, and really doesn’t apply to us anymore since we have no intention of falling into the debt-lifestyle anymore. Being on the road, owning our RV, knowing we can go ANYWHERE to get work if we need to, is more freeing and truer to the spirit of the “American Dream” than any monkey-on-your-back morgtage payment or flat screen TV.
Hope Nathan is feeling better. So glad he went in to the ER.
Olivia
17 Apr 2009 9:58 am
Yes he’s getting better and happier each day :@)
It would be interesting to hear from other families without health insurance who are in a situation where they are paying off a hospital bill. It seems that if you go through the ER, even if you don’t have health insurance, they are legally required to admit you for tests and treat you if its a non-elective emergency situation. At least that is the case here in Texas because I saw it posted up on the wall in many places in the hospital.
After the first stint, a financial councillor spoke to Nathan to find out his financial situation and gave him a much lower price, almost half of what they would charge to insurance, and that they would be in touch in a few weeks to work out a payment plan. Then a few days ago I spoke to a cab driver who told me he doesn’t have insurance and he’s been admitted 4 times, each time they accepted and treated him and he just pays a nominal amount they both came to an agreement on. (Another full-time RV person I spoke to said they gave a false address at the hospital years ago and have never heard from the hospital since.)
For those without insurance who choose to pay it off it would seem that as long as you’re paying the agreed amount every month and don’t default it shouldn’t adversely affect your credit.
I’d much rather be in that situation than have the insurance company set their collections department onto us to pay $10K which we’d never be able to afford… if we had a $10K deductible plan the hospital would have charged full price and we’d have had to pay the deductible probably for each admittance which would have come up to higher than the non-insured bill. I don’t know what our options would be except to try to find a high interest rate loan for $20K from some very shady company, and we’d go bankrupt.
It would be great to hear from others who have more knowledge in this area.