An Update on the Insurance Debacle

I wrote two months ago that my employer denied health care coverage to my newborn because I applied 4 days beyond their arbitrary deadline. (Read the full article here.)

I was scrambling for about two weeks trying to find insurance for her. It turns out that most insurance companies will not issue an insurance policy for a baby independently unless that baby is at least 1 years old. I would have to also pay for independent coverage for myself (which I don't need because I am insured through my employer) in order to cover Delaney.

I finally discovered that our state provides insurance coverage to children under 18. So, yes, even though I have never had to take state aid before and even though I am gainfully employed, my baby is now covered by Medicaid. There is something seriously wrong with this.

I am paying $40 a month for her coverage, which is very reasonable. Also, if I paid back premiums from the month of her birth, the insurance policy covered all of her expenses. (Thank goodness!)

I stewed about this for about a month before I scheduled an appointment with the president of the company to talk about this. I had to wait another three weeks to see her. I did not expect her to decide to cover my baby; I have worked for my employer long enough to know that they NEVER bend the rules. I did want to draw her attention to this problem.

She was very cordial when I spoke with her; even she did not know our sign up time for new family additions was so stringent. Surprisingly, she agreed to look into bending the rules for me since I was only four days late. She also thought that it was important that Human Resources remind new mothers to fill out the proper form for coverage for their babies. (I still can't believe NO ONE in H.R. told me about this even though I had to talk to them repeatedly to arrange my leave of absence.)

However, as I knew would ultimately be the case, she called me back about 10 days later to tell me they could not insure my baby because apparently several other workers have also missed the deadline and it wouldn't be fair if they choose to insure Delaney but not the others. She did say that she would make it a priority to get the word out about the deadline.

Yes, I realize it is ironic that I am writing this one day after I wrote about my employer's generosity in giving me a 16 month leave of absence to stay home with my baby. (See that post here.)

Huge Frugal Failure

It pains me to write this. Remember the 9 lbs. of chicken that I bought for $1.68 a pound? Well, on the day that I bought it, it was 90 degrees out and humid. After my big shopping trip, I had to stop by CVS. I was in CVS maybe 15 or 20 minutes. The chicken was in the car. . . Not a good thing.

Two days later I started smelling a funk. A bad funk every time I opened the refrigerator. I took out the chicken to put it in the freezer, and much to my disappointment and annoyance, the chicken was causing the stench. The label said it should be sold within the next 7 days. It should have been fresh still, but it was bad. . .very, very bad and stinky.

I don’t know if the chicken was bad quality to begin with or if it was my roasting car. I am guessing it is the latter. Ugghh. Such an expensive frugal failure.

A Huge Frugal Failure!

Last weekend, my husband decided to take our two oldest kids downtown for some fun. There is a place where they can splash through water, and every weekend there are kids’ activities and a band that plays music for kids.

He took our son all the time when he was little. They rode the train together and had a good time downtown. However, the one time my husband took our 20 month old daughter on the train, she got motion sickness from all of the shaking of the train and threw up on him several times.

Not eager to repeat that experience, he decided to drive downtown. They could only stay there for 2 hours before it was time for our daughter’s nap. While they had fun at all of the free events and enjoyed playing in the water, parking for 2 hours was $27! TWENTY SEVEN DOLLARS! All that free fun ended up costing $13.50 an hour.

I guess they will have to enjoy more frugal fun splashing in the water at grandma's:

My Costly Four Day Mistake

I received a phone call yesterday from the hospital where I delivered telling me they were having trouble processing the bill for my daughter because the insurance company said my baby was not on their list of insured. I immediately called my place of employment and was told I needed to fill out a form to add her to my insurance. I went to my job within two hours of that phone call and filled out the form.

Today I learned that my employer has denied coverage of the baby. Why? It says in our contract that an employee must add dependents within 31 days of the baby’s birth. I filled out the form on day 35. This is a policy my employer implements; the insurance company does not. My employer can choose to waive the deadline, but chose not to. I honestly did not know I had to fill out this form. I somehow thought the insurance would just add her on based on the delivery at the hospital. Looking at it now, I can see that this was a naïve thing to think.

I understand that my employer is abiding by the laws of the contract, but I am just sick about this. We will now have to pay for hospital bills for my daughter related to the birth, four doctors’ appointments, and one blood draw. Not to mentions that she is currently uninsured and I have to scramble to find health insurance for her. (She won’t be covered by my employer’s insurance until January 1, 2011.) This is going to be a huge financial hit. We have a healthy emergency fund, but I see it being partly depleted because of this oversight.

My Disaster Meal - Trying to Make Food Like Olive Garden

I like Olive Garden’s minestrone soup and breadsticks, but the last time my husband and I had date night there, the food seemed very salty, and we haven’t been back since. So, when I found recipes on recipezaar for Copycat Olive Garden Minestrone Soup and another for Olive Garden breadsticks, I knew I had to try them.

I used several bags of vegetables from my freezer that I had stored since last July. They were a bit freezer burnt, which did not enhance the flavor of the soup. It was still edible, but not Olive Garden quality.

My big fail came with the breadsticks. The recipe only required 1 tsp. of yeast, which didn’t seem like enough for 2 cups of flour. And, the recipe didn’t say anything about the temperature of water to add, so I added lukewarm water to be safe. Now, the recipe could be at fault, or perhaps it was me, or my yeast package that was already open and several months old. Whatever the cause, my sad little breadsticks never doubled in size as they rested; in fact their size never changed.

My husband was hungry, and after waiting 40 minutes for the dough to rise, he suggested I just go ahead and cook them up in the oven. They still never expanded!! They came out as hard little breadsticks that had the texture of a rock.

I was all excited about this meal and was going to post it on my Friday recipe section. I am still posting it today, but as a frugal flop.

I shared this post at Friday Fails.