Self-Funded Plan - Employer Subsidy of Active Participant Premiums Onl

[Christine Roberts]

An employer sponsoring a self-funded plan (stop loss coverage only) subsidizes 15% of premiums for active employees, and 0% of premiums for COBRA recipients.

The employer recalculated its group health premiums and found it had to raise them substantially. In order to prevent passing this increase on to the active employees it is increasing the percentage it will subsidize to 20% of the increased premium. However it is passing on the increase to the COBRA recipients.

Since the premium amount is the same for actives and COBRA recipients, this still meets the "similarly situated" requirement, does it not?