Medicaid Health Care in America

We need REAL heath care reform!

If the way our current Medicaid health care in America is any indication of how shitty the heath care will be when it is provided by the United States Government (OBAMA) then I have to say we are in a sorry state of getting heath care!  Up until I was put into the hospital we always paid for our health care, when we had it, either through our employer or out of pocket.  In other words, we’ve always had Blue Cross, HAP, or some other type of medical health insurance.  That is until I was admitted into the hospital and wasn’t allowed to return back to work.  Because I wasn’t able to return to work, our medical coverage was cancelled and we had to apply for Medicaid.  Thankfully we met the requirements, well at least me and Thaddeus did, they won’t cover hubby.

Anyway, I filled out all the paperwork online while I was still in the hospital (my insurance was still active but I knew it was going to get cancelled at the end of the month) and we were told that we would have our answer within 45 days via the mail.  Within two weeks we had been accepted (me and Thaddeus) and we had our Medicaid cards.

Sounds great right?  Well it was, until I had Xavier and have tried to get him added for over a month now.  I call the case worker (6/26 or 5/27) and only get his voice mail.  I call again, same thing, no answer just voice mail.  I decide I’ll fax the information over so there is some proof (6/1).  No response.  I call again, and again, and again.  No response, no answer, nothing.  I then call his supervisor (June 9th).  She takes the information and starts to add Xavier to our case to help the worker out.  I figure the supervisor is working on it and I’ll wait for the information to come in the mail.  About a week or so later the hospital calls to get the Medicaid information on Xavier.  I still don’t have it, I explain to them that I’ve been calling and waiting and getting no where.  They tell me that they will give them a call and see what is going on.

I call my worker on 6/21 and left another message.  Still nothing.  I call again today and left a message for the manager.  I call the main number to see what I can do and she tells me to come in and set up an appointment, can’t do it over the phone because of identity issues.  Ummm, you can’t set up an appointment because I may not be me????

I then call the main office in Lansing.  What am I told?  The case workers are told not to answer the phones and not to worry about the phones, just work on what is in front of you.  She tells me that I have to send something in writing.  When I tell her I did that via fax she then tells me that it has to be through the mail because it can get lost and not given to the correct worker.  WTF?  I address the fax to the worker, send it to the fax number listed on my paperwork, and he’s not going to get it even though all the pages have my case number on it because they don’t give the faxes to the correct people?  She then proceeds to give me the wrong section manager and district managers phone numbers!

I call the correct section manager after talking to the wrong district manager, who was nice enough to give me the correct numbers, and you guessed it.  I had to leave a message because she apparently isn’t at her desk either!

So here we sit, waiting to get a 5 week old baby who’s in the NICU added to Medicaid after over a month of trying!  Oh and it does get worse, but I’ll leave that for another Medicaid rant another day.

So if you think we’ll be better off with this government health care that Obama will be forcing onto us (unless we want to spend thousands of dollars each month for private insurance or we are lucky enough for our employer to provide us with insurance) you better be ready for what will be coming because I’m going to guess that it’s going to be just as bad, if not worse than it is now!  It would be just our luck if this is just how it is here in Michigan and it’s much better in other states.