I retired in June, and got my last paycheck on July 28. My pension hasn’t kicked in yet, so we’re without insurance (I elected to keep our plan, since it would be a lot less expensive than ACA. Because DC retirement board couldn’t get it together to start my pension checks in a timely manner, we’re without health insurance until they do. Hopefully nothing happens to us before then. It really sucks.
Could you do COBRA short term? I believe that you have two months after your departure date to sign up.
I suspect that that’s what the OP was trying to do:
But, COBRA payments can be really expensive (I’m on COBRA myself), and it sounds like the OP can’t afford paying for insurance, because they haven’t started paying his pension.
We could afford COBRA short term, but unfortunately it’s too late. My retirement was in June. Because I worked for the school system I still got paid through the end of July.
ETA: this is mostly irrelevant given the OP’s post just above that appeared while I was pecking at my phone. But it might be useful to somebody …
A cool feature of COBRA is you can start it up to 60 days after you leave the job, with coverage retroactive to when you left.
So assuming the OPs intended future insurance comes through within 60 days, just sit tight. If nothing bad happens, you’ve not missed the insurance you didn’t have. If something expensive happens, apply for COBRA retroactive.
Two weak spots:
- You have to have the cash to pay 2 months of spendy COBRA right then.
- Day 60 is good. Day 61 isn’t; no COBRA for you. You’ll want to have obtained and filled out the COBRA application and know exactly who to send it to how. With a serious illness or accident on e.g. day 55, there’d be a lot of distractions. Don’t forget.
I am going on COBRA myself, having just retired last week. From my reading it appears to me that your employer has 45 days to send you a letter concerning COBRA. Then you have 60 days after receiving the letter to sign up.
You may still have time.