For several years I was covered under Blue Shield PPO which I paid myself, since I didn’t get a health plan at my previous job(s). Recently, I have been hired at a job which provides Kaiser coverage with much more attractive co-pays/premiums.
The Kaiser coverage came into effect immediately upon my hire. However, the first 3 months of my job has consisted of training- training which some people have dropped out. I fully intend to make this job my career but I want to keep all my bases covered.
So, since three months wasn’t really that much time, I kept my Blue shield insurance on top of the Kaiser. My reasoning is that if I get fired tomorrow, it will be cheaper to still have it now than to use COBRA or reapply for my same insurance and risk entering higher rates. Then again, I could just be wasting the money I’m spending on premiums for health insurance I no longer use.
Is it practical for me to keep going like this until I finish training (and thus better-entrenched in my job) or am I wasting my money?
How sickly are you? IIRC, you’re an early-twenties guy- if you drink a lot or engage in high-risk activities, you might want to keep it until you’re fully entrenched in your job. If you’re not risky or sickly, I’d drop it and keep my fingers crossed. I imagine it’s pretty costly.
If you’re a mostly healthy person without any pre-existing conditions* that would keep you from getting coverage, I’d drop the other stuff. If by some chance you lose the job, and therefore the coverage, you won’t have trouble getting health insurance on your own, unattached to an employer.
*Pregnancy (spouse), diabetes, heart condition, obesity, etc.
I work for a benefits outsourcing consulting company that deals closely with both companies you mentioned. Overlapping coverage from two carriers can be bad news and is strongly discouraged. It isn’t uncommon for overlapping coverage to get criss-crossed in the payment systems and both companies will defer to the other and refuse to pay. That can be bad news for someone like you because it would be up to you to convince one of them to pony up and let the other one off the hook.
That’s what I came to post. I see it all the time, six months into a declaratory judgment action and both carriers are pointing the fingers at the other; meanwhile medical bills go unpaid.
You’ll eventually (hopefully) get it covered, but it may take a while.
There is no reason at all to keep both policies. Kaiser is an HMO with particularly extensive benefits, and in California, they’re pretty much everywhere. In fact, most of my California family has Kaiser and they’ve always been happy with the care they’ve gotten.
I agree on dropping the PPO. The COBRA payments for Kaiser may well be higher, but they are for much better coverage. COBRA will give you 18 months to get another job with insurance.
Even if they don’t fight each other, double coverage may not be what you think it is. When my wife and I had our first child, she was double covered. I expected that one company would pick up the 80% that they covered, and the other company would pick up the other 20%. Nope.
Turns out company #2 was only willing to pick up any costs that they would normally cover minus the amount the company #1 paid for. So they ended up contributing only a couple hundred bucks. Gee, thanks.
I’m surprised they even did that. You can’t claim more than once on any insured loss - the question is always there on the claim form asking if anyone else has an interest on the item being claimed.
Health insurance in the US is different. It’s possible to have two or more policies in force at the time the service is rendered, and each one has to pay out according to the terms of the policy and state and federal law. JSexton’s example is typical of this. It does get crazy and confusing at times, especially when no one is sure which plan is supposed to be the primary payer and which is supposed to be secondary, which would be the case with the OP.