The Ridiculousness of it All

Let me tell you about a completely ridiculous situation that I have been involved in for the past 2 months.

If you're not in the United States, you should know that most of us Americans get our health insurance through our employers.  This insurance covers the employee and generally members of their immediate family such as a spouse and children.  And with all the new laws that have been passed concerning heath insurance, the prices have skyrocketed.  As a result, employers are meticulously verifying whether or not the people the employee is trying to claim on his or her insurance policy are actually eligible for coverage.  Often, they make their employees go through "dependent verification" to show proof of this.  I went through this before when I was the one employed.  It was annoying but generally not a huge deal.

Enter last December.  I had to do it for my husband's company.  I had to scan in our marriage license and the kids' birth certificates and last year's taxes.  It was all electronic and I thought "well, I'm done for the year."  Ha!  I was wrong.

I get a letter in the mail stating that the marriage license was missing from the documents that were submitted.  I called and they told me that a mistake had been made.  Apparently, my marriage license looks like the license that your pastor signs before you turn it in to the courthouse and you get something entirely different back that becomes "your license."  However, my license was signed by a justice of the peace so it was perfectly valid and I've never had it questioned before having used it before (for dependent verification even).  They assured me it would be fixed.

The New Year rolled around, and I got a letter saying all my health coverage had been cancelled because I was not "an eligible dependent."  I called again.  They said it was "pending."  It stayed "pending" until last week.  Now I have to wait 7 to 14 business days before I will get coverage again.

The whole situation is completely ridiculous.  How does it take 2 months to fix a problem?  I'm a bit infuriated right now.