Getting your baby insurance is a much harder task than it should be. Or maybe it's just my insurance in particular. For the initial months following his birth Jude received blanket coverage under me, but because he is a separate human being he isn't covered under me after that. I needed to file him on his own but also as my dependent. Which let's be clear, is backasswards to begin with. I know I'm on federal disability and this makes it somewhat of a special circumstance, but c'mon. Baby needs insurance, insure baby. It isn't that hard.
I have insurance, I have a baby, he should also have insurance. He's not moving out any time soon, guys. I promise. He can't even wipe his own ass yet.
So I requested the paperwork, and there was a lot of it, then sent it back it. It was a super long waiting process, roughly six entire months, after which they said, "Oh yeah we need proof of address, proof of income, and proof of vehicle." None of which they asked for initially. So I sent them proof of address and proof of income, but I don't have a car nor a driver's license (my photo ID is a State ID) and assumed they would realize by not sending a copy of my car registration that I simply didn't have a car. It's common enough for people not to own a car, right? No word, so I call them a few weeks later and they're like, "Oh, you didn't report for your vehicle so we closed the file."
Excuse me? Rather than call and clarify, or send another request, or anything else, you basically decided to half-ass your job dealing in the health of children and close the file? Really? REALLY? Let's not even start on the fact that they closed his file without even notifying me they had done so until I called them. So I had to start all over again. All of this the better part of an entire year to go through. Now we're looking at it taking just as long.
The brochure had said that if I did not possess an official copy of my child's birth certificate that they could obtain proof of one on my behalf. The hospital here did not give us an official certificate of live birth but a simple, like, I don't now... decorative one? Useful for framing but literally nothing else whatsoever. So this seemed great to me. Your claim is processed faster if you have one already, but you didn't have one it wasn't the end-all to your case. It was not on the list of things to send them the last time, so I figured I once again woudln't need it.
Received paperwork, filled out paperwork, sent paperwork in. Waited. Waited. Waited. They sent a new temporary card for him, but time continued to pass without word. We show up to a well-check to find out his temporary card is inactive, so he's set-up with gateway insurance -- which cover all well-checks, but essentially only well-checks (which they do not tell you until you literally show up for some other reason: like your baby has Chicken Pox and they refuse you). I call a day or so later, because making phone calls is something of a tricky situation with a toddler, and find out they closed his files, again without telling me, because a lack of information.
They had not sent anything asking for additional information (these aren't envelopes you can miss, they're huge and thick). They had not called me asking for additional information. I submitted to them the exact same things I had the first time, when it was all well and good, so I literally have no idea what happened and the person on the phone is treating me like I'm an invalid because I am asking her precisely why it was closed and she can't give me a specific response. For example, last time the 'specific' response was: no vehicle registration.
This time I'm going to just go ahead and obtain a certified copy of his birth certificate at my own expense, send them the initial paperwork, a copy of my state ID, proof of address, proof of income, his birth certificate, copy his ss#, my ss#, and a blank sheet of paper in which I am going to write: "PROOF OF VEHICLE -- I DO NOT OWN A CAR OR EVEN A BICYCLE" and I'm going to sign it as a sworn statement to that end. I'm also going to highlight the part of my photo ID that says: NON-DRIVER. I'm tempted to include my breastfeeding logs from the first 12 months, the logs detailing the frequency and consistency of his bowel movements when he lost weight, and a copy of his vaccination records. They are going to have so much fucking information they're not going to know what to do with half of it. They will be drowning in how much information they receive from me. It will be a whole new level of TMI.
Because honestly these people are either dumb as a mud fence or purposefully shutting me down and either way I'm done. It's stupid.
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