Insurability

Today marks our first day of new insurance. That's right, after over a year of me fighting to find more affordable (and less ridiculous) insurance for my family, I've succeeded! A couple months back I discovered that Community Care had begun offering individual products for health insurance. Our health insurance since the girls' were born has been Community Care HMO through Jeff's business simply because that's all we could qualify for. Companies would take one look at the girls' medical history and run hysterically in the other direction. Never mind the fact that they've both been perfectly healthy since fall of 2006. I digress.

So, I bit the bullet and filled out an online application for each of us, expecting much of the same responses we've received from other insurance companies. I wasn't disappointed. I was even given the surprise of being rejected myself. That's right; they rejected all three of us girls, but accepted Jeff with open arms, offering him the preferred rate. Ugh. Not one to give up so easily, I chatted with the Community Care representative, Myra, who happened to be very nice. She explained that I had been rejected due to an annual exam from the previous year and the girls had been rejected for the same old thing, ROP and Cadie's VAD. I explained that I'd had a normal exam in the fall. She said, "Oh really?" I provided her with my doctor's name, then me moved on to the girls. I explained that we had a letter from Dr. Benner detailing her 100% recovery from her bleed and the resulting VAD debacle. Her response, "Oh really?" I obliged her with a faxed copy. And she replied, "Well, I think we have enough here to completely relook at this application." I was shocked and thrilled, but still not expecting much.

A few days later, I listened to a message from Myra on our answering machine stating that they were set to go with Jeff and "the twins". I couldn't believe it. Really? I've been fighting this fight for so long. Could it really be over that quickly and easily? Who am I to argue, though. I was scheduled for another annual appointment for which we would be waiting for results, but I didn't want to take any chances on them looking at the application and going, "What are we thinking insuring these children?!" So, I called Myra up and told her to push their applications through; we'd deal with me later. Luckily, my results were received only a couple of days later and before I knew it, all four of us were good to go. I'm not sure what happened to the ROP issue, but you can bet I'm not going to bring it up.

So, as of today, we will no longer be paying $600 a month for health care. That's right, $600 for just the four of us. Instead, we'll be paying $300. It could have been even lower, but the girls and I didn't earn the preferred rate. Oh well, it's something to strive for, I guess! I've since started reminding Jeff daily of how much money I'm saving us every month. I think I've earned at least a pedicure every month, if not a massage, too. A girl can dream...