Today I got a letter from Medicaid stating that I should be getting information on the date and time of a phone interview, and/or a list of documentation I have to send them. The letter admonished me to be quick about sending the paperwork.
Yes, I am quite familiar with their deadlines. They have to receive the paperwork--so much of it that I have to use a big manila envelope--within 10 days of the date they put the request in the mail. Most of the paperwork will probably be stuff they've already gotten from us every year for the past several years--all our social security numbers, birth certificates, drivers' licenses--as if our identities have changed. Shouldn't they have all this in a file by now? Some of the paperwork they ask for will be last year's tax forms, and paycheck stubs, which makes more sense.
They do this to us every time my husband goes away on guard duty. Every year they immediately find out (he just left four days ago for a three-week stint) when he has his summer two-three weeks. This is how the National Guard works--a weekend every month, and two-three weeks during the summer. Nobody at the medicaid office understands this, even though they are constantly gathering people's employment information.
I spoke to my mother today, and she has somehow decided that the people who work for medicaid must not be very bright if they don't already know these things.
Who am I to argue with my mother?
Last year I tried being proactive--I called medicaid before my husband left and explained the situation. That did no good whatsoever.
I keep copies of everything here--even my husband's driver's license, which is good, because it's with him right now. I may have to ask his boss for some kind of a statement of what my husband has earned this year, because he's working for a one-man business, and we don't have much paperwork from him.
If medicaid doesn't get all their precious paperwork in that 10-day period, they will cancel my children's insurance. Again. And it takes them several days from the time they receive it to know that they have it. In the past I've sent the paperwork on the day of a phone interview, before they even mailed the official request for paperwork. But that's not fast enough.
They'd like me to go to their office in person. But I have no idea how to get there. It's in a completely unknown part of town--a no-man's land for me. I've tried to tell them about topographical agnosia, but they don't believe me. My husband's not even here to drive me to the office.
I may very well have to reapply to medicaid over and over again. Last year I was actually speaking to a reporter when I got the kids back on their roll. If I get cancelled, I guess I'll give him another call.
I have one child who just chipped a tooth, and now I'm going to have to put off her dental appointment until I can be certain we have insurance. (See http://www.debsisland.blogspot.com/2012/05/its-important-to-floss.html )
And, in case you haven't had experience with having to seek government assistance, in case you think I'm being picked on--this kind of thing happens to other people all the time. Your tax dollars at work. I'm going to assume that most of you are kind-hearted people who wouldn't want a child to have to go without dental care. But I'd be willing to bet you don't want to have to pay for some office to process documents over and over again unnecessarily. I'd even bet that you'd be willing to give people fifteen, or even (gasp) twenty days to collect and send paperwork and get it processed at its destination.
This reminds me--sort of whole other topic here--this winter I got a phone call from medicaid, stating that I had a phone interview right that minute. This was very inconvenient, because I was getting ready to go pick up my children from a friend's house, and I was very sick. In fact, the phone interview resulted in my not having time to take my medications, which may have contributed to yet another downward spiral in my health, not to mention my driving during a serious asthma attack. Bad luck on my part--I was home almost all day every day this winter being sick. But not that day, and I was told that if I did not answer their questions immediately, my children's insurance would be cancelled.
I was a bit concerned by the content of the questions, which I had to answer--any substance abuse in the home, anybody pregnant, any of our daughters sexually active, any domestic violence, suicidal thoughts, depression (besides, I assumed, when dealing with medicaid)........I wouldn't have minded being asked if I would like help with any of those things; I just didn't like being required to answer their questions. If it had been any worse, I might have refused to answer. I've refused to answer questions in ERs and doctors' offices in the past ("If I did have any guns at home, they would be securely locked up." "Why do you need to know if we have a large dog?") I suppose I'm a bit touchier than average when it comes to my privacy.
Seriously, I'm pretty harmless--I'm more of a stop-the-kid-from-squishing-that-spider-I'll-get-a-jar-and-put-it-outside type. But when I'm here by myself with the children and my husband's at work, or gone for three weeks, and there's nobody close enough to hear us scream--those dogs are nice to have.
And no, nobody's pregnant here, and we're not abusing substances, although some days I can see why people would. I can see how people could repeatedly experience the hopelessness of poverty and the humiliation of being treated like low-lifes by government officials and sink into despair.
Anyway, I don't want to be forced to tell the government personal information, paranoid woman that I am. Maybe it's also partly because I feel that I've got my act together sufficiently that it's insulting that people would assume that we might be doing drugs and leaving loaded guns lying around, and that we're not smart enough to run out own lives, just because we don't have any money. We're not that kind of poor.
And I firmly believe that my mental health (assuming I'm not running down the street naked or something) is my own business. I don't have any problem reaching out for help, but I don't want the government forcing their help on me. Especially when they've failed me so badly so many times. If I do get into trouble, I think I'll reach out to somebody I can trust.
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