My health insurance company (LifeWise, the Washington branch of Blue Cross) sucks.

The check I sent them in December got lost in the mail, so they lapsed my coverage and put in a cancellation that would retroactively nullify all coverage back through December 1st.

I found out about the missing payment and the subsequent lapse on January 18th, a Sunday. On Monday the 19th, I talked to a LifeWise agent on the phone and they told me that if I paid the missing amount by the 20th, the coverage would resume in full. Otherwise they would cancel my plan entirely.

Based on that information, I drove out to their Seattle Corporate office during my lunch hour on the 19th and paid on-site, just to make sure they got the payment. I paid through the end of February, just in case anything else went wrong. Everything seemed fine and dandy.

That is, until today, when I found out at the Pharmacy that my coverage has officially expired. I called LifeWise to see what was up and they told me that they have no record of the payment I made on the 19th.

I logged online to my bank account to verify, and sure enough, the check was never cashed.

Now I get to spend the evening digging around so that I can find my receipt and fax it back to them to show that I did, indeed, pay. Otherwise my coverage from Dec. 1 up until now will be void.

$#@*&!

We really need Universal Health Coverage here in the US -- private plans, private insurance, and insurance tied to employers are uncool in so many ways.