in February of 2014, I wrote a post detailing our medical insurance nightmare.
Here’s a the timeline:
- November 2008 – Leave job with great insurance knowing Jay also had great insurance.
- February 2009 – Jay loses job to lay off, we all lose great insurance.
- February 2009 – July 2010 – Pay out the nose for Cobra, then cannot afford it anymore, lost insurance. Get kids insurance through Healthy Families, Jay and I go without.
- July 2010 – Jay gets new job – we still can’t afford employer’s insurance as premiums = 80% of take home pay. Kids still on Healthy Families.
- Sometime in late 2011 – Healthy Families is discontinued, kids absorbed by Medi-Cal.
- Late 2012 – Affordable Care Act comes into play. Kids up for renewal on Medi-Cal. We fill out forms to add Jay and I. Kids renewed, Jay and I in some sort of limbo.
- January 2013 – Call Medi-Cal, “What’s going on with me and Jay.” “We have no record of you.” “But we were on the same form as the kids you just renewed.” “Sorry. Not Sorry.” Forwarded to Social Worker. Three weeks of phone tag ensue.
- February 2013 – Social Worker can’t find my paperwork. Give social worker new paperwork. That takes me a week because you have to give them EVERYTHING to steal your identity. Copies of DL, SSN card, Birth Certificates, Paystubs, Bank Account Statements, Federal Tax Returns, etc. In hardcopy form.
- March 2013 – Send paperwork certified return receipt. I get a voicemail. “While I got your paperwork, we are not allowed to look into Medi-Cal cases until we receive the paperwork from the state. We don’t know when that will be. Goodbye.” So – find out she lied to me. I think she had me do all the extra work (I’d already done on the original forms) as a delaying tactic.
- April 2013-April 2014 – Call monthly. No word. Start receiving paperwork in Arabic. Correct it. Be told that Jay has “immigration issues.” “How do we correct that? He has to have an annual FBI background check for his job… Pretty sure he’s good!” “Don’t know, he’s listed as ‘other.'” Do not pay tax penalty as the fees were waived for 2013 taxes.
- May 2014 – Call monthly. Find out we’ve been being bounced from Covered California to Medi-Cal and back again. They look at income differently and we’re right on the border line. Covered California says we make too little for them, bounce to Medi-Cal. Medi-Cal says we make too much for them, bounce back to Covered California. Finally get approved for Covered California for insurance. Pay premium. Receive cards. Go to look up a doctor and my login no longer works. Find out that insurance has bounced us out – literally kicked us out, no refund on premium. “Medi-Cal believes you may qualify for them! You’ll be reviewed in the next 30 days!”
- May 2014-May 2015 – Call weekly to monthly trying to figure out what’s going on. Oh, there was a computer glitch. Our technical team is working on it. Months go by. It’s fixed! But you need to do a new application with Covered California. Oh, too bad so sad, the enrollment period is over. Pay tax penalty – like it’s my fault that they’re all screwed up. Insult to injury.
- May 2015-Present – Apparently that insurance we had for 1 whole month saw us during enrollment. But our case looked SO WEIRD in their system that they passed it to their Covered California liaison. This liaison contacts us. They work for the insurance company, not Covered California, however, they work WITHIN the Covered California system. They listen to our whole story. They fix us. We now have insurance.
So… We finally have medical insurance. I literally waited two months, paying the premiums, before making appointments because I was afraid they were going to kick us out again. We have both visited the doctor for the first time in 5 years. What’s going on with us medically is another story for another day. But for now (and I’m not holding my breath), the saga is finally over.
Leave a Reply