Of course, we won’t be able to place Klara on N’s insurance because my state insurance won’t give me a letter stating that we lost coverage. We are considered covered by the state even though we are not in any sense that matters.
The HR person I talked to started getting aggressive with me and saying things like, “Rauner is YOUR governor, so you’ve got to live with it.” I don’t know in what sense he is my governor if I’m not a citizen and never voted. Plus, I’m the only person I know who’s been speaking out against Rauner publicly and consistently for years. The HR person can’t know that but I resent the assumption that I’m somehow to blame for any of this.
It was dumb of me to place Klara on my insurance back in February. Super dumb. Enormously dumb. Monica sucks but not as much as Clarissa.
Clarissa's Blog 
I assume you did not correct the huffy HR person. Or did you? The HR person may not be able to do anything about it and may be on the same state health insurance, but frankly, this person should not be getting snippy with you over your kid’s coverage.
This won’t solve your immediate problem, but I think Richard Mayhew writes a series on insurance for Balloon Juice. He self describes as “I am a mid-level bureaucrat at a mid-level full service insurance company with a policy analysis addiction. I thought I was only going to write here for a month or two in the Fall of 2013 for maybe 20,000 words, and now it is 2016 and a half million words later.” I think he’d be interested in the effect of insurance lock and if nothing maybe he has some suggestions on how to get out of it?
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Do I look like somebody who wouldn’t snap back at people accusing me of being a Raunerite? 😎
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I am flabbergasted that insured parents cannot switch insurance coverage for their children from one to the other for any reason they see fit….. I can’t imagine a rational reason for disallowing that (beyond wanting a bunch of sick children without good access to healthcare, which is I suppose what insurance companies want).
The US healthcare system seems like a dysfunctional hybrid of traditional pay-or-die and thirdworld Kafkaesque bureaucracy…..
More and more it seems that there is no way to reform the US system into anything useful
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Yes, the system is so ridiculous, so byzantine, so senseless that any improvement is adding to the labyrinthine complexity without solving anything.
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Cliff, you’ve obviously been outside the US for a while. You can’t change ANYTHING involving your insurance unless you are in the open enrollment period or you have a qualifying life event.
But the open enrollment periods usually fall at the end of the year. You can probably switch Klara in January if you can just find someone to see her until then.
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“But the open enrollment periods usually fall at the end of the year. ”
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Is that your open-enrollment or N’s open enrollment? It’s his that matters in this situation.
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Right, his is April.
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Ugggg, that sucks. 😦
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“you’ve obviously been outside the US for a while”
And I don’t ever remember having any kind of healthcare coverage in the US either. I might have been covered by one or the other parent as a minor but I’m from the large group that was too well off for medicaid too poor for private insurance and I never qualified for any kind of group coverage.
” You can’t change ANYTHING involving your insurance unless you are in the open enrollment period ”
What kind of third world policy is that? Why do people put up with that type of crap?
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During the times of serfdom in Russia, serfs had one day in the year when they could leave their owner and choose a new one. Then this day was cancelled and their situation became that of slavery.
With these insurance companies, you also have a day or a week in a year when you can leave and choose another company.
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“What kind of third world policy is that? Why do people put up with that type of crap?”
I think it’s one of those things that isn’t really a problem for lots of people until it suddenly is. I’ve worked at the same university for 15 years and I’ve never had a single problem because of the open enrollment period limitations. I review my insurance options every year, occasionally make a change and revisit them again the following year. I’m sure the same is true for many other people. I would probably be completely oblivious to the problems this creates except that my mother had a career in HR and my spouse works at a hospital, so I’ve heard lots of stories about people getting into serious problems with this sort of stuff.
Clarissa’s situation is particularly unusual because she’s trapped in an insurance plan that has ceased to function but hasn’t actually shut down. This is something that isn’t supposed to happen, so the bureaucracy (clinics that won’t take cash) is particularly unprepared for it.
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I had no idea about this until the current situation.
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Have you tried talking to the insurance company to see whether they have suggestions? They might be able to recommend a pediatrician; they might also have an idea about the legal issues involved. Since I belong to an HMO rather than going private, the situation may be different for me, but I have been told by someone who handles a lot of kinds of insurance that it isn’t legal to ask for cash up front just because the insurance is slow to pay. Not sure whether I believe that or in what cases it applies, but I bet the insurance company would know.
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Look into options specifically for young kids. I seem to recall that young kids can get their shots even if uninsured. It might be an Obamacare thing. Sorry I don’t have more info, but I believe things like shots for tots should be available regardless of insurance status… Or maybe it was so pre-Obamacare…
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This might have been it
http://www.vaccines.gov/getting/pay/
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I can’t give any insurance advice, but from a medical standpoint, make certain that Klara gets her recommended vaccinations on time! This would be essential even if she weren’t going to daycare.
You and N need your annual flu shots, too.
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I’m a fanatic of vaccinations, so she gets her shots no matter what.
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