A couple weeks ago I was sent a letter by MNSure ... well, I'm not sure, I had MinnesotaCare and I was told once that MNSure was not the government department I needed to speak to ... I was sent by someone that I needed to send them proof of income to prove that I'm still eligible. I wasn't exactly sure what my income would be, since I was still a temp, so I thought that sending them copies of my tax return and a list of my W-2s would suffice.
Well, on Thursday I opened up this letter and it told me I had been disenrolled. You've got to be fucking kidding me. And that was it -- I received a disenrollment letter, and that's it.
There are two big things wrong about this, setting aside the fact that, apparently, I have been thrown out of health coverage from the state. There was no explanation as to why I've been rejected. There was a list, but that covers the gamut of reasons why anybody would get thrown out of health insurance -- haven't paid premiums (but I have), voluntarily got health coverage through my employer (that didn't happen), or loss of eligibility (is that it?), etc. No specific reason was given, therefore I don't know whether I can appeal or if there was something wrong or, somehow, if it is possible that I shouldn't have health coverage. This was just a one-page letter just telling me I don't have health insurance anymore, so I don't know what the fuck I can do about it.
The other thing was the timing. The letter says that I lose my coverage as of January 31 -- tomorrow. Remember that I opened up this letter on Thursday. I was told I was going to lose my health insurance three days before I was going to lose it. Three. Fucking. Days. And only one workday where I could call them and ask just the fuck is going on and why the hell have I lost my insurance. But of course since the deadline for everyone to sign up is January 31, when I called in I was told that they were really busy and to call back another time ... after I have lost my health insurance. Now if that isn't an unfair cheap shot, I don't know what is.
It almost feels like this a joke. And it kind of is. MNSure, or at least the new state health exchange created as a result of the implementation of ACA and, at least I think, took over MinnesotaCare, has had hiccups and fuck-ups since it was born. I was also asked for proof of income several months ago, and I was given a deadline of the day after the letter came in the mail. And that deadline, by the way, was a Saturday. I scrambled to find everything I could to put it in the mail before the day's last delivery time (which is always earlier on Saturdays because it's Saturday), but I sent a note saying, ostensibly, "You give me one fucking day to give you all the shit you want? This is what I have, and if you take away my insurance from me because of this setup, I'm going to get violent." Well, I didn't get a throw-out letter from them. Until now.
MNSure has been such a shitshow that I still think that they have made a mistake. This single letter they gave me was a disaster, but it is uncharacteristic of them to do that. At the very least they would have sent a another page stating a reason for my ineligibility. Also, there have been stories over the past 12 months about how the system has been such shit that they aren't enforcing even things such as premium payments. It's bad that bad. Finally, back in the early fall I actually went to MNSure because I couldn't figure out if I had to pay a different monthly premium. The person I spoke to said that although I had to pay a different amount from that point on, they're not going to worry about late payments. So I'm holding out hope that I, somehow, still have health insurance, and I have reason to believe that isn't a pie-in-the-sky attitude.
Nevertheless, unless I get a letter in today's mail basically saying, "My bad! You still have health insurance!" I think I need to go to the website and sign up (or at least try and sign up -- who knows if the website has been fixed since it's been a shambles since its inception) for health insurance. I'm really scared that signing up is only going to create a bunch of issues down the line. The worst of those I can think of is my job. It's probably going to end in a couple weeks. That is good because one of the ways you can get insurance after the deadline is a loss of employment. However, what I really want to do is not sign up, then sign up after I lose my job because that way I'll be eligible for more subsidies because I'm on the dole. But can I do that after the deadline? Because if I don't get insurance by tomorrow, I think I am subject to the annual fine, which I think is $700. And if I am subject to that fine, why sign up at all? It makes absolutely no sense to pay for health insurance if I also have to pay the fine. So what do I do, or don't do?
See, if we had single payer, or if we had a nationalized health insurance system, I don't ever have to worry about "losing" health insurance. Why is this something I need to look for, or to shop? It should just ... be there, you know? I'll pay whatever the fuck I need to pay, garnish my wages if you have to, but I'm now stuck in this purgatory where I may or may not have to do it and I could get myself into further shit if I don't sign up or if I do sign up? What the fuck is this? THIS IS HEALTH INSURANCE!!!
But I don't want to blame Obamacare for it. It isn't really that. I am all for a nearly completely for-profit form of health insurance, because it is a hell of a lot better than the completely for-profit bullshit form of insurance we had before Obama came into office. I just absolutely hate how it's being done. Because it isn't being done, at all. This is just one big goddamn disaster after another, and I am getting fucked over because of it.
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