Late October, they told us we were eligible for the TRA program, and extended benefits, schooling, etc. They also gave us paperwork for the Bridge Grant program, telling us that we would only have to pay a 20% COBRA subsidy, instead of the 35% temporary ARRA subsidy. We would need to fill out the Bridge Grant form and send our payments to the Kentucky State Dept. of the Treasury, until we got our HCTC paperwork, and started making payments to the feds.
I got the rep, Kim, at the unemployment office to help me figure out exactly what needed to be sent in, and I figured my payment amount. I have to pay full vision and dental, plus 20% of the medical, instead of 35% of the full amount, but it lasts until I'm off TRA, and it's about $40 cheaper per month. I mailed the paperwork and a check for my subsidy to them on the 12th of November. They stamped it for deposit on the 19th.
All jolly, right? Wrong.
I still haven't received an invoice for December, they didn't actually cash the check until the 2nd of December, and I finally got my HCTC paperwork on Saturday. According to the booklet, I can't get the 20% if I'm already getting the ARRA subsidy of 35%. So now, I'm all kinds of pissed off. I read through the other stuff today, and their eligibility questions are boned. Maybe intentionally, so people read that first page, don't go any further, and the government gets off the hook for any number of eligible people. I think they do this shit on purpose to avoid paying it. What the other booklet says, it that you can't be in both. You have to opt out of ARRA and into the HCTC subsidy. Well, no shit. That's a lot different than telling you on page one that you can't get it at all if you've been paying 35% to ARRA. To top it off, my insurance company is passing the buck on the payment processing to a new company in January, the new COBRA rates for January 1 are about $40 dollars higher, and I don't have a full COBRA rate invoice to send HCTC, because, even though I'm opting out of ARRA for HCTC, my invoices all show the 35% subsidy rate. I don't get a new invoice for the new rates, for the new company, until around December 24th, the day before Christmas, so who the hell knows when I'll actually see it. With holiday mail, it sometimes takes 2 weeks for first class around here. In the interim, I was just going to send another payment to the state, but have no invoice, so Kim gave me another calculation sheet to send it with it, so I'm not just posting a damn check by itself, and sending it into state government lala land.
So, now, I'm even more fucking confused. I try to call Kim, but the first 3 times I call the employment office, their system tells me that everyone's too goddamn busy to answer the phone, and I should call back later. 12 or more reps in the office, and nobody can answer the fucking phone. I call back, get a directory option, try to leave a message for Kim, but it doesn't give me voice mail, no, it bumps me back to the main queue, so they can inform me that they are too busy, and would you please call back later. I feel like a dog chasing some other mutt's tail, because he's too busy to chase his own ass in circles.
When I finally got a real person on the line, they told me Kim was out, but she should be back tomorrow. Which is a pain in the ass, because, of all the people that work there, Kim is the only one that knows anything about the insurance. If she's out to lunch, out sick, out for the day, out on vacation, nobody else in the office knows jack shit about how to help you. You're just fucked until she comes back.
So, I try calling the state, at the phone number Kim gave me, and I get nobody there, either. I leave her a voice mail, but nobody calls me back.
Because of the level of stupid bullshit this insurance crap entails, I refuse to use Easy Pay for my prescription refills and such. Wal-Mart, when you sign up for online refill, gives you this dandy option. Between the way Wally World fucks up on a regular basis, and the way the insurance gets handled, I'd rather beat on my nuts with a ballpeen hammer than give them carte blanche to charge my debit card, but that's what they want to do. They give me a rather chipper statement that, "Putting your credit or debit card on file with Easy Pay allows you to pay what your insurance doesn't cover. Just pick it up and go!" Yeah, right. Considering how many times they've tried to charge me full price, or charge me the co-pay price, even though their own price was cheaper, they've got a better chance of seeing me pass a mango through my urethra.
Their online refill was useful for something else, though, because it allowed me to see that I've had numerous prescriptions and remaining refills lapse, because rather than using the older ones on file first, they've just been filling the most recent ones. I've had any number of prescriptions and refills lapse because of this. I don't know if they're just fucking stupid, incompetent, or both.
So, I drive 20 miles to Campbellsville to pick up my meds and check on some stuff for my woodstove. I stop at the store, where I purchased the stove, back in 2004. I go in and ask about replacement brick, which I'm sure is pretty standard, and about getting a replacement brick plug for my ash drawer. He has no idea what I'm talking about. Tells me he's never heard of CFM, which makes about 3 different kinds of wood stoves. I told him I bought the thing from them about 5 years ago. Still not ringing any bells. I finally find one similar in his book, and he tells me they don't carry anything for it, but he gives me an 800 number for a company that might.
I leave, irritated, and I go to Tractor Supply, because they sold the same stove. They have the stove brick, which is standard (imagine that), and they had a whole pallet of it. Now there's only 3 broken ones remaining. He tells me that they're at the end of the season for ordering heaters and such, and he doesn't know if they'll get another pallet in. I look at him like he's fucking stupid, because winter hasn't even started yet.
About this time, another rep walks out, he asks him about it, and the other guy says, "I hope they send some more, I just ordered a whole pallet of it." Teamwork. Fucking excellent. But, they can only get the metal plugs, or the square brick. The stove they carry is similar, but has no ash drawer, so they can't order the plug. He suggests I cut down a brick and make one. Awesome. I love customer service.
So, I go to Wal-Mart. :( <---Foreshadowing
I go to get my meds, and I'm immediately glad I didn't use their buttful of sunshine Easy Pay option, because they try to charge me $175 plus change, for something that's supposed to be around $50. They would have overdrafted my account, and because I have the $100 overdraft coverage, it would have cleared. Then they'd have tacked on a fee, and I would be around $100 in the hole, the day before I get my next check. I then spend the next 20 minutes waiting on them to try and process my insurance. She finally tells me it's expired, and she's going to have to call them to get an explanation.
So, I wait. And she tells me that my insurance is expired, because they never got a payment. I tell her that's bullshit, because I damn sure paid the state of Kentucky, they cashed my check, and somebody got fucking paid. She helpfully tells me to keep my receipt, and I can get reimbursed once it's straightened out. I tell her, no, give me the ones on your plan, keep the others, and I'll just have to fucking do without, but thanks anyway, because I love driving 40 miles round trip for nothing.
I go to the car, and it doesn't start. Repeatedly.
I'm just about ready to go randomly directed, batshit, raving fucking crazy at this point, and I crank the car one more time. It coughs and starts. Bully for me. No padded walls for the short term, anyway.
I head home, grab the phone, and I call my insurance company.
So, here's the story. They terminated my coverage as of October 31, because they couldn't process my payment. They got the payment. They got the full payment. They just don't know what to do with it. The state of Kentucky didn't tell them whether it was for November or December. Never mind I paid it in November, they deposited it in November, and I never sent them a payment for November. They've got a full payment, but my insurance is in full on limbo, until they can reach someone in the Kentucky State Treasury Dept., and get them to say whether it's a November or December payment, because everyone elses is for December. They didn't tell them what to do with mine.
She also says I can't be in ARRA and HCTC. I say that I'm fully aware of this, and I sent in my Bridge Grant form for the state in mid November, along with 20 percent of the full COBRA amount, not 20% of the 35%, and that was supposed to opt me out of ARRA. I ask her how much of a payment she got from Kentucky. She says they got the full COBRA payment. I then ask her what the fucking problem is, and she says that she can't reinstate my insurance until she knows whether to post it for November or December. Never mind that there wouldn't even be a goddamn December payment due, if November wasn't paid, because my insurance would be terminated in October. OH WAIT! IT FUCKING WAS!
So, now, I'm waiting on her to get in touch with the state. They've already tried calling them multiple times, since she got the payment, because she didn't know how to process it. She escalated it to her supervisor, and they called again today. The lady they need to talk to isn't in the office, so I guess we both get to try again tomorrow. In the meantime, I've got a payment I made that's hanging out in purgatory, I'm out the cash, and until this is resolved, I have no medical coverage.
If they decide to have her post it for December, even though I paid it in November, then I have to send them a payment to the old address, for the 35%, to make up the back payment for November, which I shouldn't have to make in the first damn place. I can't send another payment in for December, because I don't know if December is going to be covered or not, and if it is, and I send in the payment, it'll be too little to cover the back due amount for November, at the 35% rate. I don't know who to pay, how much to pay or when it's due, and it's all supposed to change in January anyway.
I'm about ready to pull my fucking hair out. I think they do this shit on purpose, just so people give up, say who gives a shit, and they wind up screwed or broke, because nobody gives a rat's ass.
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