You have the option of retaining your coverage but you’re going to pay 102% of the total cost. That’s the employee + employer cost + 2% administrative fee. If your medical expenses don’t exceed the monthly costs of COBRA, it might not be a good financial decision to keep it.
It has been a while… over a decade… since I had to deal with COBRA, but I’m pretty sure that if you wait until the very last day, you will still have to pay the ‘missing’ months as your payment is the consideration they need to consider your coverage ‘continuing’.
I am sorry about this, especially just before the holidays. It seems a lot of companies, including mine, want to shed some costs going into the new year. So not a great time to go looking for a new job, either. However, on the other side of 1/1 companies start looking for new people once their Q1 financials start coming into focus. This sucks, but go easy on yourself and think about what you want to do next.
Also, what everyone else here is saying about health insurance. I am sure our non-US dopers who live in more civilized lands are wondering what the COBRA is all about.
Insurance:
- Get price on COBRA continuation
- Does your spouse work? What is the cost of adding you to her plan? (Probably less than COBRA)
- The marketplace. Always apply for the subsidy even if you’re positive you won’t qualify.
Now… compare prices and coverages. I can make this really simple for you and point out that the ONE figure which matters most is your “maximum out of pocket” (MOOP). Yes, deductibles and coinsurances matter, but the ACA has much of those count towards your MOOP.
(Monthly premium * 12) + MOOP
… is the formula. Therefore, a policy with a $200/mth premium and a $2,000 MOOP will be cheaper in the long run ($4,400 total cost if your health goes in the shitter) than a policy with $50/mth premium and $7,800 MOOP ($8,400 total cost if things go downhill.)
Of course there will be other considerations: are your current doctors in network, are you in the middle of an approved treatment plan, etc. But as far as calculating the total cost of coverage, the above formula is a quick and dirty way to get some comps.
I still have my license, will be glad to zoom with you and any other decision makers and go over the available exchange plans for you. PM me if you want, and no, you don’t have to pay.
Apply for unemployment benefits as soon as possible. Be aware that if you were provided with any kind of severence payment, your unemployment benefits will not begin until your severance runs out. If your severence was equal to six months pay, your unemployment benefits usually will not start for six months, severance pay is viewed as a continuation of being paid by your former employer. This is not extra money. It can be a surprise for some people.
Health care will suck, COBRA will help but costs money that you may not have. Stay healthy and live through it.
To add injury to injury…the company is allowed to charge a fee. Mine was an additional 15% for the trouble of dealing with your insurance after they laid you off. This was 20 years ago so things may have changed (but knowing the USA, I doubt it).
In addition, you will find out unemployment will be absolutely, positively pathetic. The only silver lining is that if you are Republican then maybe this will be a wake up call.
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Ok…some actual helpful advice (hopefully).
I have known people that have disappeared into their house and bedroom for around a month after this happens. What has happened is not trivial. It is a true, grievous loss. Allow yourself time to grieve.
Take at least 3 days. Up to a week if needed and allow yourself to grieve. Don’t do anything. Just let yourself be.
After that, sign up for unemployment. Be aware that many systems (even in Blue States) are designed to make this as irritating as possible - which I why I suggest waiting 3-7 days for grieving. They WANT you to give up. It takes some determination and a bit of anger to drive you through this.
After that, work on your resume. Find one online that looks good and copy it. It might not be the one you end with but you will have one. Once you start getting back on your feet you may pick at your resume making it better.
Start sending out a resume/job app once a day. Unless you are getting back on your feet and assuming you are still down…one a day. That’s it…just start…one a day. EVEN IF there are no real jobs out there…even if you won’t take the job if offered…send out one a day.
Once you start feeling a bit better, say 2-5 weeks and you have been doing the 1 a day for a bit…start feeling up your contacts (if any) for leads. If you don’t really have any, don’t panic…but you likely have some coworkers that you can contact and ask. It doesn’t hurt and they should have sympathy for you.
Constantly pick at your resume…it can always be better. Don’t obsess on this though.
If you start getting interviews, your mood will likely pick up. If you are not getting interview offers, then something is wrong with your resume and it needs a look. It can be not what you think. One time, I made a bang up resume…people loved the look of it…it looked impressive. I didn’t even embellish on it…at my previous job I really did all those things…but it looked TOO impressive. By making a second ‘dumbed down’ resume I started getting offers. So, experiment with different resumes and see which one gets more bites.
Don’t get too desperate. If you start getting offers but they are lackluster…you might be tempted to take it just to have an income and a job. However, there is a lot of crap out there and it might be best to swim in the waters a bit longer to see if something better comes along (if you have that luxury).
oops havetogo. Will check back later.
I don’t know about that specific rule, but the ACA changed a lot. Here are the COBRA requirements for one Texas government agency- they charge a 2% fee:
https://ers.texas.gov/former-employees/cobra-continuation-coverage
I remember one time, many years ago, I was laid off without real notice. I say “real notice” because it wasn’t 100% unexpected. The reason being, about a month before we had a meeting where they gathered a bunch of employees for a meeting just to announce, “Everything is fine, your jobs are safe, don’t worry.” Which was extremely alarming to me because I was unaware of any problems before that. I started job hunting immediately after that meeting. And then I was called into a meeting saying that they had to lay off all “non-billable” employees. (I was an IT administrator, so I made the company no money, as opposed to the people who worked for the company’s clients.) Not long after I was laid off the company was acquired by another one, so obviously they were “cutting the fat” to look more appealing.
Anyway, I found myself out of a job after being employed for more than 3 years, so it was a big adjustment. And of course, Murphy’s Law being what it was, I had kidney stones for the first time not long after losing my job and no longer having any medical coverage. It was extremely bad too; it took me a couple of weeks to pass the stone, and I had needed a lot of (pretty expensive, we’re talking thousands of dollars) medical support.
At that point I flat out told the hospital that I had just lost my job and was on unemployment. There was no way I could pay my bills. What they did was ask me to bring in proof, and so I brought in some of my unemployment paperwork and bank statements. Apparently, that allowed them to get some kind of subsidies and I only needed to pay a tiny fraction of the costs. My memory is hazy because it was a long time ago, but I want to say that I was paying about $100 a month for a year then we were square. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t a terrible hardship for me, especially because I had found another job in the meantime.
This would have been in 2004 and I lived in Washington State. I won’t say this is something that could happen today, or would happen everywhere. I’ve heard horror stories about medical bills putting uninsured or underinsured people on the streets. So I assume I just got really lucky. I just wanted to share this anecdote though about a time when I was in a similar situation, the worst happened, and it turned out okay.
I think this is excellent advice. It’s good for your finances and good for your emotions.
I was fired once just before the holidays too, and since I had a few options money-wise I decided I would do nothing until the first of the year except enjoy the holidays. After all, as someone mentioned, hiring doesn’t happen much between Thanksgiving and Christmas and there’s no point in driving yourself into a depression about never getting any calls when no one is making any calls. If you can posssibly manage this I recommend it. Have some turkey and (I hated the job I lost and I did this a lot) write letters in your head to the assholes who fired you. Have imaginary conversations with the assholes telling them off. I found it cleared my head. Good luck!
Oh so career white collar…good good.
To add to my hopefully non crappy advice above, explore options not exactly related to your last position…especially during the initial 1-a-day phase. You see that position for the foreman of that pornography video/movie company set? SEND IT OUT! What the heck…it doesn’t take that long and is practice. Also, don’t turn down interviews you get if you applied for a position you didn’t really think you’d want. First, it is good to get out and talk and, more importantly, you might find that you actually are interested after talking with them.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I’ll slowly digest it all. Never even really heard of COBRA before so all this is news to me and I need to figure out all this works.
What does this mean - does the company suffer a monetary penalty if their ex-employee doesn’t get a new job soon enough?
If you have ex-employees who draws on unemployment, that affects your unemployment insurance rate. Depending on circumstances, it can be substantial.
Yes – as I understand it, in most states, unemployment compensation is paid for by employers, and the amount they are charged by the state is based on how many claims (and for how many weeks) are made by their former employees.
Yes. At least it is not called BLACK MAMBA. Still, confusing.
Consider your own health situation (though of course there’s no way to predict what it will be in the future).
If you typically are very healthy, don’t take a lot of prescriptions, etc, it may be cheaper to go with one with a higher MOOP but lower premiums.
A high deductible plan is great if you’re either very healthy (cheaper premiums, unlikely to hit the deductible), or have a LOT of medical issues (blow through the deductible by March, and so on). Also, the number of household members covered makes a difference there: typically the deductible (and out of pocket limit) are 2x the individual person’s amount, whether you’re covering 2 people or 4.
Also, if you switch coverage mid-year (like when you get a new job), the deductible you met so far does NOT count toward the new plan’s deductible - so it’s a double whammy.
Note that this is with employer-provided coverage; I have no clue how it works if you wind up getting something through the marketplace.
Oh, and re the job loss: Bastards. Merry fucking Thanksgiving to you 
I think the point of delaying is not that you can submit the form in late January and start paying for February but rather that if you hold on to the form you may have gotten a new job and coverage before the 60 days runs out and therefore never end up paying for December and January.
Yep. I’ve never fired an employee because of this (along with being careful of who I’ve hired).
I’ve had employees quit, then apply for UC which I fought against and won, also because of this.
True, didn’t think of that. Regardless, one is taking a chance they may not be able to sign up for coverage when they need it.
Stupid insurance system.
That’s my experience too, but it’s been a while. And you don’t get a 60 day gap in insurance and become liable for pre-existing conditions.
As others have said, the very best employees get laid off. It’s a failure on the company to manage their business. Make sure you find your way to not taking it personally. Good luck!