I think my happy memory retelling will have to wait until tomorrow or some other time. Where do I even begin?! WTF!
The mailman brought the mail couple of hours ago. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw probably 30 or so envelopes. Let me give you some background. I moved here almost five years ago. I became a US citizen on February 18th of this year. I had my baby the month before. We were insured with Blue Cross Blue Shield, we were not the happiest with them, but hey, we had insurance! In November of 2008 we got a letter from Cobra, my husband took care of it all so I'm not sure what exactly it was, but it was basically offering to put us on Cobra since our insurance was canceled. We were surprised, but didn't think much of it. My hubby called his boss and he said there must be something wrong with it, and that he will call and take care of it. I decided not to stress over it, being in my third trimester and all. After a few days we found that everything was taken care of. In January I had my baby. Two hours latter, my husband was calling the insurance company to put him on our policy, when they told him that our insurance was canceled as of June 30th. WTF!?? We explained that this already happened in November and that we just had the baby, and all the normal crap anyone would try, but they just said they were sorry, and to talk to his employer. We were able to find out that his insurance payment check bounced twice. Of course he was taking money for it from my husband's paycheck regularly. But, the boss called. Again, he said that it must be a mistake (what a jerk!) and that he will take care of it. It took three days but then he told us it was taken care of, and we checked with BCBS, and it was all OK. Skip two months and my husband found one morning, out of the blue that his boss sold the part of the business he worked in and that he will be starting with the new company. We heard of them before and they have been involved with some shady stuff before, and my husband started looking for a new job the same day. Within a week he was hired on with a new company, in the same line of business. He is a fawesome guy, my hubby he is! :D
Anyway, the job did have a pay cut, but we figured it out that we would be able to make it (we are used to living from paycheck to paycheck) until he has his three months review. The insurance for me and the baby ended up being significantly more than with the former employer, so we had a big problem after all. I decided that I had to ask for some help. We had bills from my delivery on top of everything, and we were short several hundreds of dollars each month now. I tried applying with DWS for help with insurance payments, and in order to qualify, we couldn't have insurance. Because I took my baby to the doctor a week before, and received a statement from BCBS, I realized that they were still covering us, so I called to cancel it. I figured the boss would do it anyway as soon as his balloon head realized it. Well, you would think it would be easier to cancel insurance. We couldn't. First they said he had to do it, then after a long explaining they said that they would, but it is impossible to cancel it before April 1st because it was already paid up until then. I said I don't want it, I don't trust him and his check might bounce again, I want it canceled right then. They said that everything looks OK and that it is indeed paid until April 1st, our only option being canceling as of then, which we did.
Skip a month again, when I broke my toe and knocked my nail off. (again, long story that I will get to one day) and I went to the doctor. I knew that they said certain things will not be covered because I had a renal cyst, a precondition. They would void it if we proved we had insurance in the last 60 days, which we were getting around to doing. I got the bill from hospital for my toe, and they didn't cover anything, my expensive insurance that I pay every other week will not cover ANYTHING for 12 months because of the precondition. Well needles to say, we were on the phone the next morning, trying to get that statement from BCBS. Guess what they told us? They can't issue it because they retroactively canceled our insurance to June 30th! AAAAAAARGH. Not again! Well, we started calling all these different places, tried bluffing with a lawyer, only to get the response from them that they WOULD advise us to get a lawyer. They said, your biggest problem isn't the statement you are trying to get, but the fact that we are as of April 1st, going after doctors and facilities to get our money back, and they will bill you then. Yes, we tried everything, explaining what they told us before, and all that crap. Nothing worked. We started looking into lawyers this Sunday, but haven't gotten around to calling them yet, we did call Utah Industrial Commission (no help at all) trying to explain to everyone who would listen that the jerk just took our money and never paid the insurance. No one cares, it is easier to go after us than him. Which brings us to today and my mailman and the 30 envelopes. They are from BCBS denying all the claims and saying we owe to the hospitals all together $30,283.45! Yaaaaaaay us. I am writing this because I have to concentrate, and it is the only thing keeping me not to have another panic attack, and from shaking uncontrollably. Did I mention already that I am currently on pills for my postpartum which was accompanied with anxiety already?
What will we do? Well, the only thing left to do is to sue. Whomever the attorney says we can. Do we have money for them? Of course we don't...we will have to ask if they would be willing to do it pro bono for us. If not then Legal Aid. If we lose and I have to declare bankruptcy, I will leave my spot for American Dream to someone else, I am packing my suitcase, my baby and my hubby, and I am taking them back home. Am I supposed to stay here? What am I supposed to tell my child when it grows up? Be responsible, pay your bills, work hard, but hey, even if you do everything right they can still screw you and you can't do one bloody thing about it!
I am proud to live in America at this point in time. I am proud to have Obama for president, and I hope to God that he will be able to do something about the health care because this right now is ridiculous! I will write him a letter tomorrow (I already know he reads randomly picked ten letters a day, but I have to try), as I will write one to our state representatives, telling them our situation. I will make sure that we did everything in our power to stop this ridiculousness, but if we can't, I WILL NOT declare bankruptcy. Not because it could never happen to me, it could if we haven't tried so hard to avoid it. But, we have had to work our buts of anyway in the past five years, sacrificing a lot of things that we wanted to do, skipped a lot of movies and dinners and visits for me back home, and more importantly because I refuse to live the American nightmare and it is not even our fault!
UPDATE:
I have talked to a lawyer a few hours after I published this post. I used the free phone consultation, looking for lawyers the other day I found some that do this. He said we have a case against the boss, probably not against the insurance. They are obligated to contact him as the owner of the company, that insurance is going to get canceled if he doesn't pay, but they are not obligated to contact and inform us. They are not going after him though, but they are taking their money back from facilities, which will then go after us. How screwed up is that?! He also said we need to sue as soon as possible, and that it will cost us a lot of money to see it through. At that point I asked did he know anyone that might want to accept our case pro bono. He said with situation like our and the nature of the case, he doesn't think so, but to try calling the State Bar and Legal Aid. I will do that tomorrow, if it doesn't work I don't know what to do. We will end up paying a mass sum of money either for a lawyer or for medical bills. :(
The mailman brought the mail couple of hours ago. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw probably 30 or so envelopes. Let me give you some background. I moved here almost five years ago. I became a US citizen on February 18th of this year. I had my baby the month before. We were insured with Blue Cross Blue Shield, we were not the happiest with them, but hey, we had insurance! In November of 2008 we got a letter from Cobra, my husband took care of it all so I'm not sure what exactly it was, but it was basically offering to put us on Cobra since our insurance was canceled. We were surprised, but didn't think much of it. My hubby called his boss and he said there must be something wrong with it, and that he will call and take care of it. I decided not to stress over it, being in my third trimester and all. After a few days we found that everything was taken care of. In January I had my baby. Two hours latter, my husband was calling the insurance company to put him on our policy, when they told him that our insurance was canceled as of June 30th. WTF!?? We explained that this already happened in November and that we just had the baby, and all the normal crap anyone would try, but they just said they were sorry, and to talk to his employer. We were able to find out that his insurance payment check bounced twice. Of course he was taking money for it from my husband's paycheck regularly. But, the boss called. Again, he said that it must be a mistake (what a jerk!) and that he will take care of it. It took three days but then he told us it was taken care of, and we checked with BCBS, and it was all OK. Skip two months and my husband found one morning, out of the blue that his boss sold the part of the business he worked in and that he will be starting with the new company. We heard of them before and they have been involved with some shady stuff before, and my husband started looking for a new job the same day. Within a week he was hired on with a new company, in the same line of business. He is a fawesome guy, my hubby he is! :D
Anyway, the job did have a pay cut, but we figured it out that we would be able to make it (we are used to living from paycheck to paycheck) until he has his three months review. The insurance for me and the baby ended up being significantly more than with the former employer, so we had a big problem after all. I decided that I had to ask for some help. We had bills from my delivery on top of everything, and we were short several hundreds of dollars each month now. I tried applying with DWS for help with insurance payments, and in order to qualify, we couldn't have insurance. Because I took my baby to the doctor a week before, and received a statement from BCBS, I realized that they were still covering us, so I called to cancel it. I figured the boss would do it anyway as soon as his balloon head realized it. Well, you would think it would be easier to cancel insurance. We couldn't. First they said he had to do it, then after a long explaining they said that they would, but it is impossible to cancel it before April 1st because it was already paid up until then. I said I don't want it, I don't trust him and his check might bounce again, I want it canceled right then. They said that everything looks OK and that it is indeed paid until April 1st, our only option being canceling as of then, which we did.
Skip a month again, when I broke my toe and knocked my nail off. (again, long story that I will get to one day) and I went to the doctor. I knew that they said certain things will not be covered because I had a renal cyst, a precondition. They would void it if we proved we had insurance in the last 60 days, which we were getting around to doing. I got the bill from hospital for my toe, and they didn't cover anything, my expensive insurance that I pay every other week will not cover ANYTHING for 12 months because of the precondition. Well needles to say, we were on the phone the next morning, trying to get that statement from BCBS. Guess what they told us? They can't issue it because they retroactively canceled our insurance to June 30th! AAAAAAARGH. Not again! Well, we started calling all these different places, tried bluffing with a lawyer, only to get the response from them that they WOULD advise us to get a lawyer. They said, your biggest problem isn't the statement you are trying to get, but the fact that we are as of April 1st, going after doctors and facilities to get our money back, and they will bill you then. Yes, we tried everything, explaining what they told us before, and all that crap. Nothing worked. We started looking into lawyers this Sunday, but haven't gotten around to calling them yet, we did call Utah Industrial Commission (no help at all) trying to explain to everyone who would listen that the jerk just took our money and never paid the insurance. No one cares, it is easier to go after us than him. Which brings us to today and my mailman and the 30 envelopes. They are from BCBS denying all the claims and saying we owe to the hospitals all together $30,283.45! Yaaaaaaay us. I am writing this because I have to concentrate, and it is the only thing keeping me not to have another panic attack, and from shaking uncontrollably. Did I mention already that I am currently on pills for my postpartum which was accompanied with anxiety already?
What will we do? Well, the only thing left to do is to sue. Whomever the attorney says we can. Do we have money for them? Of course we don't...we will have to ask if they would be willing to do it pro bono for us. If not then Legal Aid. If we lose and I have to declare bankruptcy, I will leave my spot for American Dream to someone else, I am packing my suitcase, my baby and my hubby, and I am taking them back home. Am I supposed to stay here? What am I supposed to tell my child when it grows up? Be responsible, pay your bills, work hard, but hey, even if you do everything right they can still screw you and you can't do one bloody thing about it!
I am proud to live in America at this point in time. I am proud to have Obama for president, and I hope to God that he will be able to do something about the health care because this right now is ridiculous! I will write him a letter tomorrow (I already know he reads randomly picked ten letters a day, but I have to try), as I will write one to our state representatives, telling them our situation. I will make sure that we did everything in our power to stop this ridiculousness, but if we can't, I WILL NOT declare bankruptcy. Not because it could never happen to me, it could if we haven't tried so hard to avoid it. But, we have had to work our buts of anyway in the past five years, sacrificing a lot of things that we wanted to do, skipped a lot of movies and dinners and visits for me back home, and more importantly because I refuse to live the American nightmare and it is not even our fault!
UPDATE:
I have talked to a lawyer a few hours after I published this post. I used the free phone consultation, looking for lawyers the other day I found some that do this. He said we have a case against the boss, probably not against the insurance. They are obligated to contact him as the owner of the company, that insurance is going to get canceled if he doesn't pay, but they are not obligated to contact and inform us. They are not going after him though, but they are taking their money back from facilities, which will then go after us. How screwed up is that?! He also said we need to sue as soon as possible, and that it will cost us a lot of money to see it through. At that point I asked did he know anyone that might want to accept our case pro bono. He said with situation like our and the nature of the case, he doesn't think so, but to try calling the State Bar and Legal Aid. I will do that tomorrow, if it doesn't work I don't know what to do. We will end up paying a mass sum of money either for a lawyer or for medical bills. :(
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