So my ex and I are in the middle of a divorce. Long story short he moved 6 hours away from where we lived together with the kids. I couldn’t afford the rent on our old apartment so I had to move in with my mom for a while. I had no one to watch the kids while I worked. My sister helped for a while but then our grandmother got sick and she had to leave the state to go take care of her. My husband works a job that lets him choose his own hours. So I made the decision to let him take the kids.
I’ve covered both boys with Kaiser for over a year now. The thing with Kaiser is that you can only use the insurance with a Kaiser hospital/facility. The problem is the town he lives in is very small and far from any major cities. The nearest Kaiser hospital is 5 hours from his home. So he decided he would get them a different insurance. One that lets him use it at any hospital. I was fine with this. But he let me know today that I would have to cancel my insurance for him to use his. This might be why I’m the AH. I don’t want to cancel their insurance. Kaiser is the best insurance, they offer a lot and the co pay is reasonable. Plus up until I gave him the kids we were fighting over them. He pretty much demanded I let him take full custody of the kids because he’s the “better” parent. He’s very upset I asked for the divorce and has done things like call CPS on me when I had custody of them. And spread lies about why we’re divorcing making me out to be a horrible person to his family and my family. He’s scheduled a court date to get full custody from a court. I’m afraid if I cancel the insurance he’ll use that against me in court. I think this because the one time he came back here for visitation with the kids I said it was okay for him to stay at the apartment and that I would give him space to spend time with them ( he tried doing it at a relatives house but there was a problem and they had to leave). While he was here he filled the fridge with food and said it was because he noticed it was looking a little sparse. I had been planning to go to the grocery store on my day off. Well one of the things the CPS woman mentioned was that the person who called them said I had no food in the house at all and that my boys had nothing to eat. I don’t put it past him to tell me to cancel then use it against me in court to make me look bad. But I’m also concerned my boys wouldn’t be able to go to the nearest hospital if they need to. I’m not sure what to do. Or if I’m just being paranoid.
You’re not being paranoid. Please contact a lawyer and ask them for the best advice.
I don’t think anyone here is really qualified to make a statement on this lmao. I’m inclined to say YTA for encouraging him to delay treating your kids for 5 hours if they get badly hurt at his place (bc it’s that or likely ruining himself financially).
If you’re not willing to look for a low cost or free lawyer at least ask him to sign a document that says you were canceling the Kaiser at his request so that he can purchase insurance on his own. There are ways to protect yourself that you seem to be blind to.
Wait until you go to court.
My kid has been on both my insurance and his mom’s insurance for years. I actually have K P and his mom added him to her Blue Cross Blue Shield policy, and there was no problem. The only question is which insurance policy will be primary insurance, which is based upon the birthday rule. Lots of kids are on both of their parents insurance policies. The birthday rule looks at which parent is has an earlier birthday in the year. Maybe that’s really the problem. Is your birthday earlier in the year than X? NAH.
There are sometimes very valid reasons to use to insurance policies. In our case, it was that Kaiser has terrible mental health, but is pretty good for medical. Another good reason would be that both parents live in different cities and different policies apply. If you lived in two different states, you would almost certainly want to have two different insurance policies if the kids are staying with both parents for different parts of the year. You should investigate this further.
I’ll add that in Maryland, we did have a problem in which my kid wanted to have his own policy under the exchange, and he was already under his mother’s policy under the exchange. Only in that case he would’ve had to get off his mother‘s policy, but the local government had a procedure for dealing with that. They never let one parent block a kid from getting their own insurance. And with an employer policy, this is even less problematic. Having another insurance policy means their cost if anything will be less.
This isn’t a reddit question. It’s a question for the courts. You should be paying him child support and that may include providing insurance for the kids. It seems pretty reasonable to me that he doesn’t want to drive 5 hours to the nearest hospital.
Present it all to the courts and let them figure it out.
NTA
What you can do is make ex’s insurance primary and yours secondary. If you have misgivings about canceling – don’t.
I’m going to answer the specific question in the title of the post.
I don’t know anything about medical insurance, but it seems like you are putting your kids at risk as some kind of payback. If they need medical assistance they will have to travel for 5 hours. Are you an asshole for this? YTA.
Get a lawyer and deal with the other stuff in your post.
get a lawyer. please. keep the insurance. document his conversations with you.
His reasoning doesn’t make sense, and a quick Google search backs me up:
*Yes, two parents can have their children on their own health insurance plans, but the plans will work together. When a child is covered by both parents’ insurance plans, one plan is considered the primary payer and the other is the secondary payer. The birthday rule typically determines which plan is primary: it is the plan of the parent whose birthday (month and day) comes first in the calendar year.*
***How it works***
*Primary and secondary coverage: The primary plan pays the claim first, up to its coverage limits. Then, the secondary plan may cover some or all of the remaining costs.*
*Coordination of benefits: The insurance companies coordinate benefits to ensure the total payment does not exceed the cost of the service.*
*Advantages of dual coverage: Having two plans can sometimes result in lower out-of-pocket costs, a wider network of providers, and greater flexibility in treatment.*
***When the birthday rule doesn’t apply***
*Same birthday: If both parents have the same birthday, the plan of the parent who has been covered longer is considered primary.*
*Divorce or separation: The plan of the parent with legal custody is typically primary, though this can be overridden by a court order or agreement.*
*Employment status: If one parent has health insurance through a current employer and the other has it through a former employer (like COBRA), the plan of the currently employed parent is primary for the children.*
*Joint custody: In cases of joint custody, the standard birthday rule often still applies, even if the parents have different custody arrangements.*
If you both have them on your insurance but he’s the primary parent, then whatever insurance he has would be the primary insurance and yours would probably never be used, but I don’t see why you would have to cancel it?
Do not take any advice on cancelling or retaining the insurance from Reddit.
CONTACT YOUR LAWYER and follow their advice only. If you don’t have a lawyer, GET ONE. You need help to navigate this court case and it needs to come from an expert, not Reddit.
DO document everything with your ex. Do all communications in writing and save everything and show it to your lawyer.
YTA. Great medical insurance means nothing if you can’t use it. Seriously, you expect him to take kids to a hospital that’s at least 5 hrs away? Cancel it and let him pay for insurance for the kids.
I worked in medical billing and kids can have more than one insurance plan through their parents. He is lying to you. At least wait until the court date, and have this discussed in front of a judge.
I don’t think it makes sense that you would have to cancel the kids insurance for hom to get other insurance for the kids. I have been double insured and I haven’t seen anything that says your kids can’t be double insured. It sounds like a lie. I bet if you told him it was canceled he wouldn’t know if it was or not because it shouldn’t actually prevent what he is trying to do.