Refusal of COBRA Coverage
This is not an uncommon occurrence and many states have passed regulation to protect people in a similar situation. Depending on your state of residence, insurance companies may offer, or even be forced to offer, “guaranteed issue” coverage under federal HIPAA law. Basically, you enroll in an individual health insurance policy that must insure you, regardless of your current health status. There may be limitations on which types of plans are available to you through each insurance company, so you will need to do some research to find the available HIPAA coverage that is most suitable for your needs. In other states, guaranteed issue HIPAA coverage is available under the state’s high-risk health insurance pool. For a list of states with risk pools, visit the section of our website dedicated to Health Insurance Risk Pools. Another option worth investigating is any other type of insurance that might be available to you. The most common of these would be a group health plan through the employer of your spouse. Since group health insurance is guaranteed issue, as an eligible dependent you cannot be denied coverage due to your condition. There may limitations as to when you can join the group health plan as a dependent, but the loss of your current coverage should make you immediately eligible in most instances. It is best to check with the plan administrator of your spouse’s health plan for more details. 1 CommentLeave a comment |
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I have worked for the same company for over 10 years and just learned that they are closing their doors. There are only 5 employees, but they provided us with health insurance that we had to pay a part of. I thought that I could go on COBRA, but they tell me that COBRA will not be available. Is this legal? I thought that a company had to offer this.
There are both federal COBRA and state COBRA provisions. Essentially, this law requires any business that falls under these regulations to offer employees that are leaving the company the option to remain on the company’s group health plan for a specified period of time. The ex-employee then becomes responsible for paying the monthly premium associated with their coverage, often paid to a COBRA administrator that handles payment to the insurance company. If a company goes out of business, their group health plan ceases to exist and therefore, so does the option to continue being covered under that plan through your COBRA option.
Please help me understand COBRA and health insurance in California better? How much of the actual cost of health care and medical bills will be covered under COBRA? Also how much will a doctors visit cost under COBRA? My boyfriend quit his job of two years last month and I think he can continue his health insurance in California with the COBRA plan, but how much will a single visit cost to a doctor when he uses COBRA? More or less?
He needs to do a skin biopsy?
We know that he will be paying $280 pr. month now for continuing COBRA coverage.
Comment by Jessica — June 27, 2009 @ 10:29 am