Hours Cut

[Guest tracyzimm]

My mother was told two weeks ago that her positon was being cut to P/T. This leaving her with no insurance benifiets. We have reason to believe that this is all about greed not for the betterment of the company. She is 6 months shy of retirement her insurance premium is very high and we feel the boss flat out, just does not want to pay for her any longer. What if anything can be done. She has givin them a check for Januarys premium. They gave it back to her a week later saying SHE would have to re-apply for insurance on her own. She has pre existing conditions (Costly) and no other insurance company will touch her.

Her company is messin' with her and I fear that too much time is passing and she is going to wind up uninsured! HELP! What can we do??

[JanetM]

Depending on the size of the company - she may be eligible for COBRA coverage. That is required by law. Find a copy of the Summay plan description and read it.

[mroberts]

Agreed. If she is eligible for COBRA, the company can not deny her the right to elect coverage.

[Mary C]

If COBRA is not available, don't rely on the company to come through and give her benefits back right away. In order to avoid becoming uninsured, start shopping for personal policies immediately - start with whatever carrier she had group coverage with. The state in which she resides may also have a policy for uninsured or uninsurable individuals. Also ask the plan she belonged to for a HIPAA certificate. Any time spent covered by any insurance will go toward fulfilling the pre-existing exclusion limitation under a new plan as long as she has not been uninsured for more than 63 days since her loss of coverage. In addition, HIPAA has provisions that affect the personal marketing side that supposedly make it easier to buy a personal policy (I don't work with personal policies so I'm not real sure about these provisions.)

Good luck