Posted on 05/10/2005 1:27:46 PM PDT by Wolfie
Mother of sextuplets faces loss of Medicaid-funded nurse
WYOMISSING - A Berks County woman with year-old sextuplets and 4-year-old twins will appeal for continued nursing help from Medicaid beyond a one-year cutoff.
Kate Gosselin, whose husband has a 90-minute commute to a state job in Harrisburg, said she cannot safely manage eight small children.
The sextuplets - only the second set born in Pennsylvania and among fewer than 30 sets born worldwide - arrived 8 weeks premature but are thriving as they near their first birthday Tuesday.
"I will shout from the highest mountain that these are my children and I love them and I need help," Kate Gosselin said.
While the Gosselins appreciate the volunteers who streamed through their home in the early months, the children's routines improved with the arrival of Angie Krall, a licensed practical nurse who spends 30 hours a week with the family. Medicaid provides the temporary nursing support for premature babies, Gosselin said.
"She's fine-tuned and I trust her," Kate Gosselin said of the nurse, Angie Krall. "She's as good as a parent in this home."
The family cannot afford to pay Krall on their own, she said. Jonathan Gosselin, an information technology specialist who now works in the Gov.'s Office, was unemployed for much of last year.
Kate Gosselin said she feels society has a responsibility to help with the children, since modern medicine promotes the use of fertility drugs, which can lead to multiple births.
She has talked by telephone with Bobbi McCaughey, the Carlisle, Iowa, woman who delivered the world's only set of surviving septuplets in November 1997. McCaughey named the loss of privacy and the oversight of volunteers as among her biggest difficulties, Kate Gosselin said.
On the bright side, the Gosselin babies seem to have skirted the health problems that can plague premature babies and multiples. Each now weighs between 18 and 22 pounds.
"I look at six healthy babies and I feel a lot better, because it could be a lot, lot worse," Jonathan Gosselin said.
Damn that accursed drug war!
Pardon me while I hurl!
What a load of dog poop.
In other words Kate decided to use fertility drugs.
Sorry honey. Hostess promotes Twinkies, but they're not liable for my butt.
Well, why not. We're going to pay for illegal aliens medical care, so let's help this woman out, too, even though she's just a lowly citizen.
I guess Hilary was right. It really does take a village to raise a child (and a government run health care system, too).
Socialism, anyone? It's the coming thing.
This is in my neck of the woods. I'd like to tell her about responsiblity. Plus she works in a Rat Govs office, so it figures. And why is she working? Man, this is making me madder and madder.
And I suppose 'society' forced you to use those drugs at gun point, hmmmmm?
Kate Gosselin said she feels society has a responsibility to help with the children, since modern medicine promotes the use of fertility drugs, which can lead to multiple births.
&&&
Huh?
"The family cannot afford to pay Krall on their own, she said."
For the record: If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em.
i know raising eight kids is tough, but when did HER eight kids become the responsibility of everybody else?
Nope, but you could try auctioning off advertising space on their diapers on eBay.
I wondered if she considered abortion as an alternative.
Um, the HUSBAND works @ the Govs office.
There's gotta be a lawyer willing to sue her doctor for inflicting these children on her. Somebody's gotta be held responsible!
I don't fault them for using fertility treatments if they needed them in order to conceive and I am glad she elected to have her children in lieu of aborting the extras as so many are doing.
I don't believe that that entitles her to a LPN on staff at the government's expense.
Someone needs to tell this freeloader, that society had nothing to do with the making of those babys.
I wonder how she'd welcome the financial aid if we all got to take them as a deduction on our tax returns :-)
As far as our government having responsibility for this woman's children, I just can't agree.
But if this family were local, I'd certainly organize some sort of support function via my church.
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