Not OT: Help Get Ellice a Job

That wasn't allowed in New York back when I was working. At that time if a group policy was in place all employees were permitted to be a part of the group, even if they had a prior medical problem.

I guess now that the insurance companies run the show, anything goes.

Lucille

Used to be part timers could buy into insurance plans too.....

Cheryl

In my office that was true only if they worked more then 20 hours per week.

I hadn't heard about employers being able to exclude employees, but you're right -- the insurance companies now make their own rules ... some of which our State Dept of Insurance is investigating them over because they are grossly illegal. They just hope that the person they're dealing with doesn't know the law.

I don't know that they can. What kinds of restrictions are you talking about?

Elizabeth

I think that the unrestricted (with no coverage exceptions) joining for all employees went out years ago. Though, it can vary depending on state insurance regulations. In general, in private industry, they may have policies which have waiting periods, or exclusions for pre-existing conditions for some time period, etc. It's one of the true benefits for federal employees - immediate coverage, and no exclusions, waiting for pre-existing conditions. The worst case, you have to wait til a new pay period starts for some adds - with us, when my old agency dropped my coverage - without telling me - we were able to have DH call his personnel person, and get me added to his immediately - well, we had to officially say the coverage would wait 2 days til start of the next pay period. But, for changes in life status (divorce, change of employment of person carrying coverage, etc) you don't have to wait til the annual open season - so that's a nice thing.

Ellice

Hours, wait periods for "full coverage", health of dependents (wife had cancer and the health plan wanted to exclude her).

All this is "second hand" from few friends that are seeking new employment. One is stuck at her current job because the small start ups she's looking at for the challenge, their small group health plans don't want her because of pre-existing conditions.

Cheryl

And they gave me coverage when I worked for the Smithsonian even though I was only 10 hours a week during the school year and was full only for the summers.

Cheryl

This is one way in which a state-run system would be better than our current for profit system: if a company is in the business for profit, you really can't expect it to take on cases where they know they're going to lose money. Puts people in a nasty bind, it does.

Elizabeth

All this talk of the problems with the US health insurance system makes me very, very happy that I am a Canadian, and about 100 years ago Mrs. Douglas went into labour, and bore a son who was called Tommy.

Yup. I think one of the reasons companies like Starbucks also do well as stop-gap jobs, or get some mature people working - the insurance. It's very generous and you get benefits as long as you average 20 hours a week over a

Ellice

Yep. Because my symptoms were visible during the interviews, I never got to the stage of actually discussing employment, but I suspect I'd run into that, too.

California has been talking about a new employment-based plan that would cost no more than X% of the company's income. One of my equally afflicted colleagues and I are thinking of calling ourselves a 2-person company because the proposed percentage of revenue would be a lot less than we're paying now, and for better coverage.

Amen to that.

And now the word comes that someone is lobbying the Democratic party to add a plank to the platform for full medical coverage for illegal aliens. I say, not till every legal American has every bit of healthcare that we need. I know too many people in my boat -- too young for Medicare, too sick to work full-time, not disabled enough for Disability -- who get little or no healthcare because we can't afford it and no one else is willing to pay for it.