Retirees are scrambling to keep their dependents insured on state health plans, a task made harder by the federal shutdown.

The Department of Central Management Services has hired H.M.S. Employer Solutions to audit the eligibility of state employees’ dependents in four state insurance plans. Right now, it is concentrating on retirees in the State Employees Group Insurance and Teachers Retirement Insurance Program, who have until October 25th to submit paperwork proving their dependents are eligible for insurance. The problem is one document that’s needed for every dependent category except children under 26 and domestic partners – a 2012 federal tax return transcript.

“The front page of your income tax. Only a transcript from I.R.S. will do,” said retired Department of Child and Family Services employee Craig Bailey.

Baley got his letter Sep. 30, the day before the federal government shut down. Now he needs to prove his wife, Carol, who has been his dependent for 40 years, is still his wife so she can stay on his insurance.

But with the local I.R.S. office closed and no one on the other end of their phone line. That’s proving difficult.

Bailey is not alone. Almost everyone that will be audited for dependent eligibility in four state insurance plans needs that document. The only dependents that don’t require the transcript’s front page are domestic partners or children under 26.

Director of Health Policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, Naomi Lopez-Bauman, said the audit is a reasonable way to ensure taxpayer money isn’t being misspent. As to the problems of getting ahold of tax return transcripts, she said she looked on the I.R.S. website “and it turns out that even though there is a government shutdown, they’re still able to order transcripts, and they will be sent to them…and they should receive them  within five to 10 business days.”

While that is true, and an employee on the H.M.S. telephone line for the audit said they had walked people through the process, it has not worked for Bailey on any of the nine times he has attempted it.

H.M.S. will Consider extensions, which is what they told bailey when he called.

“But they didn’t say they would,” Bailey said. “They said ‘they’ll see.'”

That’s not terribly reassuring when not getting an extension means Carol could be dropped from the coverage.

“And once you drop a dependent,” Bailey said, “you have a great, hardly time getting them back on.”

“Tomorrow maybe my turn to have health problems, and I would like coverage for it,” said Carol.

C.M.S. officials declined to appear on camera but estimated the cost of the audit at $393,000.

A C.M.S. spokeswoman said those in the College Insurance Program and Local Government Health Plan were sent their initial letters in August.

Read the story at wics.com