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Cobra is such a huge slap in the face too for most people. We know you just lost your income as of today, but do you wanna buy this health insurance plan for 3K

Cobra is such a huge slap in the face too for most people. We know you just lost your income as of today, but do you wanna buy this health insurance plan for 3K a month?

brianwawok 3y ago
You can often use it to game insurance between jobs though. You have like 60 or 90 days to decline coverage, and it backdates to the day you lost coverage. So 46 days of gap between job 1 and job 2? Don't get cobra, just tough it out. If medical bills are >= 3k, then go ahead and sign up for cobra and get a chunk covered.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The COBRA option is pretty nice to have available as gap coverage if you need it even if it is pretty expensive at the family level. (Of course, personally paid 100% medical insurance in the US in general is expensive--especially at the family level.) COBRA at least means you don't potentially have to switch medical providers because of a short-term switch in insurance.
seltzered_ 3y ago
It can be a slap but sometimes an employer will discount the COBRA insurance for a period of time.
nunez 3y ago
If my understanding is correct, the idea behind cobra is to use it just-in-time for healthcare operations that are more expensive than the monthly premium, ie a $25k surgery + $15k hospital stay
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  That's a hack that is often described on HN, but the point of COBRA is, as the name suggests, continuity (originally, in part because pre-ACA an issurance gap itself had adverse consequences to future insurability, and acquiring private-market insurance isn’t typically instant, but also because people often have ongoing medical needs where a discontinuity in coverage could disrupt service, )
  - ericbarrett 3y ago
    Yes—something people today might not know is that before the ACA, you could be denied insurance coverage for "pre-existing conditions," which in practice meant anything medically recorded before you were insured. Changing insurers (because you changed jobs) didn't reset this period, but having a gap over a certain length did—I believe it was 60 days. So it was very important to make sure you maintained coverage, or else your ongoing cancer/arteriosclerosis/diabetes/etc. treatment was suddenly 100% out of pocket. Also, COBRA and medical insurance in general used to be a much smaller fraction of middle-class take home pay, so it was a lot more realistic to elect to pay it out of savings even if you weren't concerned about all the above.
FireBeyond 3y ago
Oh, you forgot the potential 2% fee, too. If your employer was paying $3,000/mo for your insurance, it's going to be $3,060 for you. Fuck whichever lobbyists made sure that was allowable. Edit: corrected per the reply.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Oh, you forgot the mandatory 5% fee, too. It's not mandatory and its capped at 2%, not 5%, but, yes, there is a potential additional charge beyond just the full cost (what would be the employer + employee share, for a current employee) of coverage.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    I do appreciate that. Have edited my comment with your correction.

Cobra is such a huge slap in the face too for most people. We know you just lost your income as of today, but do you wanna buy this health insurance plan for 3K a month?

brianwawok 3y ago

You can often use it to game insurance between jobs though. You have like 60 or 90 days to decline coverage, and it backdates to the day you lost coverage. So 46 days of gap between job 1 and job 2? Don't get cobra, just tough it out. If medical bills are >= 3k, then go ahead and sign up for cobra and get a chunk covered.

ghaff 3y ago
The COBRA option is pretty nice to have available as gap coverage if you need it even if it is pretty expensive at the family level. (Of course, personally paid 100% medical insurance in the US in general is expensive--especially at the family level.) COBRA at least means you don't potentially have to switch medical providers because of a short-term switch in insurance.

seltzered_ 3y ago

It can be a slap but sometimes an employer will discount the COBRA insurance for a period of time.

nunez 3y ago

If my understanding is correct, the idea behind cobra is to use it just-in-time for healthcare operations that are more expensive than the monthly premium, ie a $25k surgery + $15k hospital stay

dragonwriter 3y ago
That's a hack that is often described on HN, but the point of COBRA is, as the name suggests, continuity (originally, in part because pre-ACA an issurance gap itself had adverse consequences to future insurability, and acquiring private-market insurance isn’t typically instant, but also because people often have ongoing medical needs where a discontinuity in coverage could disrupt service, )
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  Yes—something people today might not know is that before the ACA, you could be denied insurance coverage for "pre-existing conditions," which in practice meant anything medically recorded before you were insured. Changing insurers (because you changed jobs) didn't reset this period, but having a gap over a certain length did—I believe it was 60 days. So it was very important to make sure you maintained coverage, or else your ongoing cancer/arteriosclerosis/diabetes/etc. treatment was suddenly 100% out of pocket. Also, COBRA and medical insurance in general used to be a much smaller fraction of middle-class take home pay, so it was a lot more realistic to elect to pay it out of savings even if you weren't concerned about all the above.

FireBeyond 3y ago

Oh, you forgot the potential 2% fee, too. If your employer was paying $3,000/mo for your insurance, it's going to be $3,060 for you. Fuck whichever lobbyists made sure that was allowable. Edit: corrected per the reply.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Oh, you forgot the mandatory 5% fee, too. It's not mandatory and its capped at 2%, not 5%, but, yes, there is a potential additional charge beyond just the full cost (what would be the employer + employee share, for a current employee) of coverage.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  I do appreciate that. Have edited my comment with your correction.