oriecat

I think it even sounds too generous. People have profiles and the "About Me" page where they could put their information, then if others want to check them out, they could, and the rest of us wouldn't have to see it all the time. But I'm mean.

Yes, that is correct. COBRA applies to "group health plans". A Vision plan is considered a group health plan, as would be a dental plan if you have one. You used to be able to require the coverage bundled, but you can no longer do that and they must have the option of taking either coverage. I get a lot of people that just elect our Dental COBRA, as it is affordable, whereas medical COBRA is not.

A COBRA workbook I got from a seminar addressed the notification as an ERISA issue, in that, you are denying benefits, therefore you have to let them know so they have appeal rights.

I'm sure. There are lots of things they don't think about.

The Summary of ARRA provisions, contained in the model notices that the DOL put out also put it in terms of when you are eligible for continuation coverage, not when the loss of coverage was. However, if you just go by the model Request For Treatment form, you can easily check all 5 boxes, since it doesn't ask when the COBRA eligibility date is.

This is an interesting question. I always assumed that through December people could get the subsidy. But Q-10 says : Bold added by me. In my mind, this person isn't eligible for COBRA until Jan 1st, so no they wouldn't be eligible for the subsidy, under how I am reading this part of the notice.

Don't you have a separate COBRA enrollment form? We require our enrollment form, and then the Form to qualify for the subsidy would be an additional form, and therefore it would not be enrollment/disenrollment information, since it is not related to the enrollment at all, it is simply relating to the amount they will be required to pay.

This is on the DOL info page http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-cobra-pre...eductionEE.html

Who is telling you that and did they offer any proof?

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Not that I know how you could quantify it, but wouldn't you also need to consider increased savings from having the $1500 in saved taxes now, and compounded through all of the years until retirement, versus getting it as benefits later. ETA: And what about the number of years? Current age of 48, retirement age of 68, so 20 years of saving 1500 a year = 30k. Will they be receiving benefits for 20 years and living to 88? No way to know that, of course, but statistically? I don't know, just some thoughts.

No, $5000 is the max per couple. If they did sign up and do it that way, they would have to pay the taxes on their 1040 when they complete the 2441 Form.

To me, the company refusing to acknowledge the facts, especially when you have reason to believe the employee may be misrepresenting them to the DOL, equals you helping the employee commit fraud. They're not eligible under the rules as we understand them, you know it, you need to tell the DOL that. I really don't see how you can justify doing anything else. So you don't want to be the bad guy who gets his subsidy denied? Big deal, it should be denied! There are plenty of people who are upset because their term date missed the Sept 1 cut off by a few days, that doesn't make it okay.

This discussion deals with a similar issue and might be useful to you. http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?s...c=41867&hl=

The IRS Notice says: To me, that says that it is involuntary if you change someone's status while they are off due to medical reasons.

You have to have a qualifying event and apply for the change within the allowed time to drop the pretax premiums. If they would be outside the window to add the child to the plan, they would be outside the window to drop the pretax coverage completely as well. I wonder though, if you could add the child, and then leave the current premium pretax and do the additional premium after tax?

My HR Dir was just asking me about this yesterday too, so I would also love to know more clearly.

No, I don't believe so. One good reason to have the plan years the same!

Does anyone have any good sources of info on developing and administering the new bicycle commuting benefits? I would like to discuss implementing this with my employer, but I'm feeling a little lost about how exactly it is supposed to work. A lot of the webpages I can find discuss a $20/month limit, yet it seems as though the code specifies it as an annual limit, which makes more sense since it seems like most people won't have expenses every month.

She's not eligible for the plan. Are they planning to amend the plan so she will be eligible? Will they do this for everyone else too? Sounds like a big problem to me.

I don't see how that would qualify. It's not a medical expense.

Unfortunately, I agree with the Union. The first two questions on the AEI form that determines eligibility are: 1. The loss of employment was involuntary. 2. The loss of employment occurred at some point on or after September 1, 2008 and on or before December 31, 2009. It's not about when you lose coverage under the plan, it's about loss of employment. Your husband did not have a qualifying loss of employment.

I think it will depend upon what exact options are available under the AFLAC also.

If he is over the normal dependent age and then will no longer qualify as a full time student, then yes, he would need to sent a new COBRA notice for loss of eligible dependent status and he would get the extension.

This is just purely anecdotal, but I have had employees in the past who qualified for other chip programs and the state contacted me about their premium reimbursements and I was just able to tell them that I preferred for the premiums to go directly to the employee instead of to me. There wasn't any sort of formal procedure for it. So perhaps it will just continue on that way, and you will get notify when the state is processing an application for an employee.