Health Insurance

[VA_Mom]

What is the name of your state? VA

Will a judge order a NCP that lives out of state to carry health insurance coverage?

What if the NCP wants his new spouse to carry health insurance on the children? Will the judge grant it considering the new stepparent is not the legal parent?

I would think that out of state insurance would not provide adequate coverage. Currently, the children are not covered by Medicaid but by FAMIS, a federal/state program offering low cost insurance to working CP's (similar but with slightly higher co-payments).

 

[Whyte Noise]

Sure, a judge can order someone that lives out of state to carry insurance, but think about it... what if their insurance provider isn't one with doctors in the children's state? My husband isn't ordered to carry insurance on his children, his ex wife is. But she bitched and whined about him getting insurance on them too (dental and vision as her employer plan doesn't cover vision at all, and the dental part sucks), so to appease her, he did. We live in TN, the CP and kids live in MO. Insurance through his employer only covers providers in TN, and none in MO, so now anytime his children need dental or vision care, guess where they have to come to get that? And guess who refuses to let them come to TN to get it? So she wanted him to get insurance, he did, the kids have to come to TN to be seen by in-network providers, she refuses. *shrugs* What's the point of him having insurance on them then?

The reason I posted that is so that you know that an out of state insurance may NOT have providers in the CP's state for the children to see, such as my husband's case. If not, then the insurance is useless unless the CP allows the children to go to the NCP's state when they need treatments.

Stepchildren can be carried on most insurance plans legally, without a judges order.

 

[VA_Mom]

What??? That makes no sense.

Well, the NCP lives a couple states away which is over 6+ hours from our home to his. I would think that each insurance company covers a child under a different division depending on the territory like Anthem Blue Cross does.

Would requesting to put the children on his new wife's policy allow them to modify the child support? It's a new order (and yes, believe it or not he is getting married too - makes you wonder ) and is saying that when they get married his new wife will put them on her insurance. It's not practical for the children to visit the doctors 6+ hours away esp. if they are sick.

I just found out FAMIS has an option that they will reimburse a family $100 per child each month for private ins. I may go that route instead.

 

[Whyte Noise]

Who is ordered to pay for the child's insurance now? If it's the NCP then that's already figured into the monthly CS calculation and I highly doubt he'd be able to modify for that issue.

His new wife's insurance may cover the children in your state. It all depends on who is underwriting the policy and where they have providers at. A big insurance company like BC/BS (for example) would have in-network providers in all states so the child would be covered in your state or in the NCP's as long as they saw in-network providers approved by BC/BS (if this is who stepmom will have insurance through). In my husband's case, it's NOT a big conglomerate company. He had to choose ONE provider to cover the dental aspect and ONE provider to cover the vision aspect (He doesn't have health, only vision and dental). Now... my children (who are his stepchildren) are also on this policy too. 2 of them live in Georgia with their father, so if they need dental or vision care they'd have to come here as well. My ex isn't as much of an ass as my husband's is about that though. Since we live in TN, the practical choice was to have providers in TN as we would be the ones using the insurance on a more regular basis and TN is where we live. Children in both MO and GA are covered, however they have to come to the provider here in TN to receive treatment. His insurer had him choose one provider. It was their rule and my husband didn't have a choice.

Basically, it boils down to who stepmom's provider is and where they cover services at. If she has it through a bigger company then you pobably won't have a problem getting your child seen in your state.

 

[VA_Mom]

Right now the children are not being covered by either the CP or NCP. (Just took NCP to court for over a year worth of back support which caused me to lose my job during that time- lack of childcare ). So I asked that the county put the children on Medicaid.

Now that he has been ordered to pay up and I've been working for a couple of months I want to take the children off of county insurance. Unfortunately, even though both NCP and I work our employers insurance plans are staggering in cost. So I was going to enroll them in private health insurance and found where the state (not the county) will send me a monthly payment of $100 per child to help cover the private health insurance. This will leave me a remaining monthly insurance bill of $230 (basically the cost to insure me) which would cover medical, dental, vision, prescription, etc. The policy would be in my name and I would be responsible for making sure the premiums are paid each month.