Wow, I just couldn't believe it. I asked them to repeat that to be sure I heard it right. But that is the policy of Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield. I am actually lucky in this regard though. Through a technicality, they may still offer me insurance. It so happens that my wife's group plan at her work is currently through Anthem, so they would be required to cover our son regardless, so the agent sent my plan in through the 'backdoor' to the underwriters, explaining as much. He seemed confident it wouldn't prove to be an issue.
The logic, he explained, was as follows:
It is national (or state, I have no idea) law that a parent be allowed to add a newborn child to their insurance plan when the baby is born. It is Anthem's policy not to offer insurance to an unknown person, so they deny expectant fathers.
We here in Kentucky have thirty days to add our son to a policy, as our son will be covered under my wife's individual plan through her employer for the first thirty days. I think that is standard coverage for most plans with maternity coverage. I do not know how that works for plans without maternity coverage, or in other states.
Now my wife's employer has her enrolled in in a high deductible health plan, and then offsets some of the extra costs she incurs with an HSA. It works well enough for her. Adding me and/or our future son to the plan would not be reasonable though. The insurance representative even said we would do better for me on the open market than being added to her plan. Without an additional offsetting contribution to her HSA, the costs from the high deductible health plan were absurd to add me or our son. This is because , for reasons I don't choose to disclose, she gets routine screening, that is expensive until the deductible is met. Adding me or our son increases the deductible limits significantly, and thus the amount we would have to pay. The employer contributions to the HSA wouldn't increase at all. We would have been paying well over $5000 a year to add me with the increased deductible and premiums, and over $9000 for me and our son.
Our plan was then to add our son to my health plan. This is were it gets tricky. I currently have coverage through my university for being a funded graduate student. I plan to turn down future funding as I plan to defend this fall right before our son's birth, and do not want to be saddled with a teaching assistantship when I would rather be home with my family. Fortunately, I am also self employed and can afford to do this. I will then spend the fall sending out applications and hopefully find employment to start early next year. If all goes well, my new growing family can then be added onto my new employer's health plan, at their mercy for coverage, you know, the American dream.
This requires me to get individual insurance on the open market now, as I will be turning down my funding in August, and thus will otherwise be uninsured. Once I have insurance, we can then add our son to my policy, or hers, whichever makes the most sense economically.
Seems simple enough right, but damned if it wasn't. Two hours on the phone going through routine policy questions, only to get the initial rejection, which I was told beforehand would come. Then only to find a way through because of a small technicality, which again I was told about beforehand, but I still had to go through the formal process of applying, getting rejected, and then having my case re-examined by their underwriters.
I am frustrated by all of this. It may work out for me in the end.. Who knows, maybe they will look at the costs we would incur by adding our son to my wife's policy and realize they are better off denying my coverage. I don't have coverage yet. I do not like being at the mercy of an insurance company. If it does work out, I don't like being the beneficiary of a technicality knowing someone else in the same position, but whose wife's policy was through a different company, wouldn't be so fortunate.
I just don't like this. It has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Rant over.