Great news!

Here's an answer to a prayer I hadn't even verbalized: WOW - GTU's health insurance rates just plummeted. It's only going to be $381/month ($4,572 annual) for ALL THREE of us to have insurance! That means we can actually afford it for not only me & Maggie but John too (though he will protest - and for just me & Mags it's $2856 for the year, so we might go that route - though I do think that, as a daddy, it's important that he can get medical care if he's sick, especially since he's the primary care provider!). The rates went down 62% from last year (it was $11,525 for a family last year). That's a huge blessing for all of the GTU community!!

This means that insurance won't even take up my whole stipend! And we might even be able to consider not taking out a student loan, which would be really good since I'm a little worried how much we've already taken for my master's.

I'm so relieved. I'm really glad because now I feel like I don't have to try to get the government program. I don't know - the gov't program is really cheap - only $15 a month - but I'm just not sure we'll qualify. At least if we try for it and don't get it, I will know we can get insurance at a reasonable cost anyway.

What a relief!