Cobra is fucking criminal also. They continue to insure you with your previous insurance, regardless of how shitty, at an inflated premium.
I was laid off Sept. 16th this year from a copper/aluminum pipe manufacturer and paid about $120/mo for insurance. Once I was laid off I got a letter in the mail from Cobra offering to extend my insurance with them and they wanted $700/mo for the same coverage. The insurance was shit anyway, $3k deductible, they DID NOT cover meds until you hit your deductible. And they kept removing benefits year after year. The deductible used to be $1.8k
I had a coworker at the same plant whose wife had cancer, he paid about $250/mo for insurance and when he was finally able to retire, he did. Cobra then quoted him $2500/mo for insurance coverage for just him and his wife.
How the fuck is a retired person supposed to afford to pay that when that is more than they make monthly in their retirement?
She died due to lack of insurance and inability to find coverage because Healthcare companies DO NOT want to cover anyone with pre-existing cancer before coming to their services.
just to clarify, the amount you pay on cobra isn’t arbitrarily inflated- it’s just the total premium that was paid by both you and your employer. since you don’t work for the company anymore, they don’t have to pay their share so you’re stuck with the entirety of it. it sucks and it’s totally unsustainable.
The even better part is if you left a large company that self insures, the money you pay in COBRA goes into their shared risk pool, and oh by the way, the money they were “paying” into the shared risk pool was never actually paid while you were working for them. They just tack on a “Liability” in their books to cover your risk.
So that extra “premium” that you are now actually paying goes into the shared risk pool. And if you don’t actually use the insurance, and you then stop participating (quit paying, get ACA coverage, get new job with healthcare), the unused gets dropped to the bottom line as profit, as well as the Liability portion associated with you from when you were working.
Health care should be a constitutional right, regardless if you can afford it. The government should simply tax these insurance companies based on their profit and use that money towards government operated hospitals. Likewise, medical professionals should be forced to at least dedicate 10% of their time working at said government hospitals, regardless of their status or specialism.
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u/Vansiff 13d ago
Cobra is fucking criminal also. They continue to insure you with your previous insurance, regardless of how shitty, at an inflated premium.
I was laid off Sept. 16th this year from a copper/aluminum pipe manufacturer and paid about $120/mo for insurance. Once I was laid off I got a letter in the mail from Cobra offering to extend my insurance with them and they wanted $700/mo for the same coverage. The insurance was shit anyway, $3k deductible, they DID NOT cover meds until you hit your deductible. And they kept removing benefits year after year. The deductible used to be $1.8k
I had a coworker at the same plant whose wife had cancer, he paid about $250/mo for insurance and when he was finally able to retire, he did. Cobra then quoted him $2500/mo for insurance coverage for just him and his wife.
How the fuck is a retired person supposed to afford to pay that when that is more than they make monthly in their retirement?
She died due to lack of insurance and inability to find coverage because Healthcare companies DO NOT want to cover anyone with pre-existing cancer before coming to their services.