The first-ever series of layoffs I experienced resulted in me scouring the Internet high and low for seemingly reputable inexpensive online insurance brokers. I settled on ehealthinsurance.com and went through a fairly easy application process. That was a year and a half ago.

Since I have recently been placed in the same situation, I went back to ehealthinsurance.com to reapply. Fortunately, they kept a percentage of the information I had entered last time, accelerating the data-entry process somewhat. Instead of going with HealthNet, like I naively did last time, I jumped off that ship and decided to stick with Blue Cross of California, my health insurance provider when previously employed at Flextronics. When I reached the section of the application where they make you bend over and remove small pieces of your large intestine (similar to the financial strip search you undergo when applying for a home loan), I put in as much information on my family’s prior clinic and hospital visits that I could remember, listing visits to Sunnyvale Medical Clinic and Good Samaritan Hospital.

A week later, I received a letter in the mail stating that “the medical history in our files indicates the following health care providers have been seen.” They go on to list Camino Medical Group and San Jose Medical. The letter continues, “This information was not included on the Individual Enrollment Application. As a result, we are unable to process your application for enrollment.” So, because Good Samaritan Hospital is now part of San Jose Medical, and Sunnyvale Medical Clinic is part of Camino Medical Group, they rejected my application because of the mismatch. Even a phone call didn’t help.

I’ve reapplied, adding the information that they themselves gave to me. Does it make sense to deny insurance to someone because they didn’t disclose or didn’t know about what the company already knows? When it comes to insurance I guarantee that their records are better than mine. Sorry, but there’s something wrong with the system when they can tell you “We’re denying your coverage, even though we’ve been your most recent provider, because you were supposed to tell us every office visit or medical treatment you or your family has had that we’ve paid for and we have all of the records for.”

We’ll see what next week brings. “I’m sorry, but you’ve been denied coverage because:”

- you misspelled “dermatology” in Section 6C.

- you did not disclose the fact that you had a plantar’s wart surgically removed by Dr. Mel Practis just below the metatarsophalangeal joint on the big toe of your right foot in 1984.

- your second-grade teacher’s middle name was actually “Yamamoto”, not “Fujimoto” as previously stated in section 14G.

- we detected an unauthorized use of our customer service center via telephone from your primary residence without a referral from your primary care physician, which is against established underwriting guidelines.

- we don’t actually accept online applications. eHealthInsurance is actually a business unit of the Al Queda.

- Because you provided them with all of your personal information, your stolen identity will be used to generate fake passports for terrorists.

- we feel like it.

Have I mentioned that I hate insurance?