First of all, please don't bash my DH for what I am about to post. He opened his own business 3 years ago, I lost my job a 1 1/2 years ago, just closed a 3 1/2 year court battle with BM over custody change, and we are still trying to recover. Be gentle.

When CS was first court-ordered 4 years ago, DH was ordered to carry insurance on SD IF INSURANCE WAS AVAILABLE TO HIM (standard wording in our state - yep, it's all on the dad, BM's are apparently exempt from provided insurance for their own kids). It was not available at the time through his employer. However, SD was already being carried on BM's insurance for $160/month so DH was instead ordered to pay $80/mth on top of CS. This was all written into the CS order. About 3-4 months after CS was set, BM was fired from her job with the insurance. At the time, DH did not bother to have CS modified to reflect the insurance change (we were not married then). He figured she would get another job and they would figure it out when she got new insurance. Instead, BM remained unemployed/part-time for the next 2 years and signed SD up for state (free) insurance. DH did get estimates at the time for covering SD on his own and they ran about $400/mth. Neither BM nor DH could afford that so she opted for the state program.

A couple of weeks ago, BM emailed DH that SD was losing her state coverage. BM could add her to her employer's plan (yes, she finally got a job and managed to keep it for the last 2 years) for a total of $300/mth. But she keeps insisting to DH that he was ORDERED to carry insurance on SD. She conveniently leaves out the "if insurance is available to him" part. She also seems to think that if DH carries insurance on SD, that the cost of it will be completely his responsibility. But it's not - our state divides it in half. So BM's half would be deducted from DH's CS payments. DH's CS payments are about to be reduced dramatically due to a CS review INITIATED BY BM. So, in effect, BM could owe DH for insurance when it is all said and done.

So, what DH decided to do was go down to the state insurance office and see if he could get SD signed up for the free insurance under his name instead of BM's. He does not have health insurance and neither do I, so adding her to a family plan is not an option. We cannot afford to insure her on an individual plan right now. We simply do not have the money. The case worker told DH that BM failed to submit her most recent income statement and that is why SD is being dropped. BM told us she no longer qualified. I'm not sure how BM knew she didn't qualify if she never submitted the paperwork required to keep her covered. Also, BM has always made it seem like she is the only one who can apply for the state insurance because she is CP. But, they told DH that he has enough overnights to more than qualify. Also, his income is so low, he qualifies financially as well.

Well, we emailed this info to BM last night. Asked her to either submit her income statement to the state agency to keep SD covered under her name OR to cancel her coverage so that DH could sign her up under his name. Wouldn't you know it, she emailed back fuming mad. She is furious that the state agency spoke to DH about HER personal information (umm, it's about his daughter, not you), furious that he is trying to "get out of his obligations" (like she did for the last 4 years when she couldn't afford insurance), furious that he is trying to insinuate that she will be partially responsible the cost of insuring SD under HIS insurance if he has to pay for coverage, furious that he is "waiting until the last minute" (even though we had a snow and ice storm that shut our entire city down for a week).

This bitch will never be happy until she has bled DH completely dry. Even if she isn't the one getting his money, she wants him to PAY. Even though this does not affect her in any way, in fact benefits her because it will be free for her as well, benefits SD because it is great health, dental and eye care insurance AND SD gets to keep all the same providers, she is mad because DH is not getting punished financially. Even though she signs SD up for anything she can get that is free - school lunches, childcare - it is not ok for DH to do so. And, truth be told, it hurts DH's pride immensely that he is having to do this. He would never do this if we could afford insurance.

I'm not sure what BM's motive was here. Obviously, her goal in life is to make sure DH ends up single, broke and miserable (like her), but in general it's not like her to let SD's health related stuff lapse. She is usually a huge control freak about all things medical (she used to work in the medical field, she now works in the health insurance field, ironically) so she thinks she is practically a doctor. So, I am thinking she purposely did not send her info in so that DH would be forced to find coverage for SD. She has harped for years that he is "in contempt" for not carrying insurance on SD. Also, maybe she realizes that she made a mistake in pushing the CS issue and her CS is going to go down? So she wants to make sure DH takes a hit financially from some other source? Also, there hasn't been much drama lately with no holidays or anything. So maybe she just needed an excuse to crawl out of her hole and cause some drama so that she'd have a reason to interact (read: argue) with DH? Either way, I can't wait for this to all be over!!!!