Health Insurance

As far as I know you can only use COBRA for up to 18 months, and the insurance company is allowed to charge you a small surcharge towards admin. expenses. I'd be very surprised if individual insurance through the b-school's parent university wouldn't be substantially cheaper than corresponding COBRA coverage. I do understand however that if entire families are involved then COBRA might just be the only reasonably affordable option.

Some insurers offer really reasonable private insurance plans for younger individuals - in Connecticut for instance, one can get very reasonable PPO coverage for less than 150$ a month. Compare that to premiums in New York that are around 400$ a month for private insurance covering ONLY hospitalization. $700 for a family of 4 is a steal by New York standards. I know my company paid >800$ in health insurance premiums per employee in New York.

Cobra is a horrible idea long term, we would only use it for a few months if we take an extended amount of time off before school. School plans are probably closer to 2K a year which is far cheaper than cobra. That said if you are married and your spouse will be working then thats clearly the way to go and where cobra is great...that or you want to take time off before school insurance would kick in.

I think cobra on my wifes plan is 102% of the premium...could be 104%.

im planning on taking cobra. i think my rate is around $230 a month.

added to Knowledge Vault

What are the options for Internationals? Moreover, for family members and dependent children? What's the typical cost? So used to having 'free' health cover.

This thread is quite old, but I wanted to share something I learned. If you plan to quit within 60 days of when your school insurance begins, you can retroactively elect COBRA when you need it.

Meaning, if you quit on July 1st and your school insurance starts on September 1st, then you don't have to pay for COBRA unless you need the insurance. If on 8/28/08, something happens and you need health insurance, you can enroll in COBRA as of the date that you left your job. You just have to pay for the 2 months worth of premiums. If you can avoid any accidents by 9/1, then you save 2 months worth on COBRA insurance.

If you need insurance for more than 60 days before your school insurance kicks in, then I would look into temporary health insurance. It's only about $80-$100 a month, and it's nowhere near as comprehensive as regular health insurance and has a fairly high deductible, but it's a good "major accident" coverage.

Thanks for the info Angel, I think it may be slightly different for each company. Mine gives 31 days where you can retroactively enable COBRA.

By law I believe its 60 days from notification of your rights (they have a few weeks to do that).

interesting, the letter we get is 31 days after your date of termination... Maybe the law is different in every state?

This is what I may end up doing instead of COBRA (other than my free 31 days)
https://www.tonikplans.com/plan_overviews_CA.php

I believe its federal law...read up on it. Its also interesting that they limit it to 102% of the cost.

https://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fscobra.html

thanks for the info river, I'll have to check with our benefits people at work. If that's the case (60 days), then I'm set!

My wife gave her notice today and her boss did a whole walk through of what benefits she gets and stuff. I guess her boss's daughter just graduated college so she went through a lot of this, so its saving a lot of stress from my wife having to deal with some HR person.

wow, she's lucky. My boss knows nothing about these things, and the HR person assigned to our department is also clueless. I've been digging through our company policies and stuff to figure out things like going Part-time and health insurance. Grrr...

We've gone with Aetna, global coverage. Subsidised by my wifes previous employer, so full cover on everything. The wifes employer allows us to be covered for up to 18 months after she leaves for the whole family.

Thats basically COBRA here but ours you pay the full cost the employer doesnt pay for anything.

We figure that we will be covered until mid/late September so by that time my wife will have started her new job and will be covered.

Not used to all this health insurance stuff. Back in the UK, Health care is 'free', and in Japan there's a national health system. Our Aetna coverage isn't free, but because it's part of an employer group policy, it means it's cheap(er).