Health Insurance Woes?
I need help from someone much smarter than me on this one:
Is it possibly legal that a health insurance provider could require an employee of a company to sign up for employer-subsidized health insurance? What rights does someone as an individual have to either not have coverage and/or choose independent coverage in this state, anybody know from a legal standpoint?
It seems mindblowing to me that an employee does not have the right to take their life into their own hands and refuse coverage without potentially risking their job… especially in the one state with an assisted suicide law on the books, though I probably shouldn’t even bring that up. Is it possible that an insurance company could strongarm an employer, not to mention an employee, like this? Shouldn’t our free market make this moot? All the legal reference for the state law that could be found had lots to say about employers, but little that was readily discernable for individuals. And the Oregon Insurance Division doesn’t give any immediately apparent info on this either.
Anyone? Bueller?
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Be careful here as insurance companies get very weird when you have other coverage. So if you’re already paying for coverage, and get additional, every time you go to the make a claim, there could be a battle over which has to pay.
I’ve never heard of mandatory health insurance; most companies I’ve been with just make you sign something saying “no”, so they have proof of your denial. Pretty standard when you’re using your spouse’s insurance.
Who’s doing the forcing? The company? If you say “no”, they won’t hire and/or will fire you?
There should be no ‘battle’ over who should pay if you have more than one coverage - there are specific rules that insurance companies have to follow - if the coverage is yours as “subscriber” - it pays first. If another coverage has you as a spouse or dependent, it pays secondary. For kids, there are rules for which parent’s policy pays first - again no ‘battle’. You just have to provide the information to the insurance companies so they know what order to pay.
As to mandatory coverage - most employers contract with insurance companies stating that x percentage of their eligible employees must be covered. Sometimes that is 100% unless other coverage exists - that chance for you to to say NO.
The mandatory part is dictated by whatever agreement your employer has made with the insurance company. It is NOT just the insurance company saying this is how it is.
Why do these agreements exist? So that the risk can be spread amongst all insured people -otherwise only people who are sick would sign up for insurance.
K, that makes sense, except that there’s an out for anyone that has a spouse or group insurance by other means– so does that mean that the employer can only hire single, non-insured people as a criteria so that their insurance company gets paid?
Jonashpdx - No, that doesn’t limit the hiring, just means that every employee (or the percentage in the contract) has to have insurance from some source.
So - if you didn’t have spouse/parent or whatever coverage, you could not opt out.
If you can show proof of other coverage, you have the choice to be double covered or opt out and maybe save a few bucks.
It goes back to the ’spread the risk’ idea - if there is coverage from some source then the risk is spread out among everyone.
I use car insurasnce as an example - I have never had an accident, but I still pay my insurance premium, and my $$ are going to cover someone elses loss that is greater than the premium dollars they have paid in.
but the problem that seems to be cropping up now is that since the previously owned insurance isn’t a GROUP policy, it may not qualify as other coverage in their eyes. and the car insurance comparison is a good one, but I can choose whether or not to have a car, and then can choose my insurance (and the insurance level). but i can’t choose to not have a job, and the current presentation isn’t allowing me to shop for a better, more affordable type of coverage. thanks for your comments, they’re helpful to wrap my mind around this whole thing. and that’s the thing, the “maybe save a few bucks”. we’re not really talking a few bucks, we’re talking a whole lot of bucks in comparison to the overall compensation, and there was no notification when the job was taken that the health benefit (and i’m sort of using that word ironically at the moment) was REQUIRED, so there was no choice as to losing a chunk of the paycheck every month. as we all know, there’s just gotta be a better way to deal with this insurance deal.