Any COBRA experts out there?

[jim584672]

I did elect it, the company was just paying the premiums for a few months

Good to hear.

 

[rbmrtn]

I did not have to stay on COBRA--I could have switched to other insurance during the open enrollment period that ended mid-December 2014. In fact the megacorp letter advising of the premium increase for 2015 gave subtle hints that the ACA might offer more palatable rates....

You can always switch during open enrollment, what I was referring to is you can not just drop COBRA outside of open enrollment and get an exchange plan. Dropping COBRA is not a qualifying event, exhausting ( using it up ) is.

 

[rbmrtn]

There really is not a requirement that the employee has to pay for COBRA themselves. My company decided to pay for COBRA directly which makes the the COBRA free (tax free too) for the time covered by the company payments.

And you may be right that the answer may have been right.

With the company in bankruptcy... one can not be sure they will have a health plan for those remaining even as long as they offered to cover cobra... thus it could disappear at any time.

Yes the premiums can be paid by anyone, only requirement is they are restricted to charging you no more than 102% of the cost.

You may be in a different situation with a bankrupt company. They would probably terminate their health plan which then terminates the COBRA offering but you won't know until they tell you. Once they terminate then you are back to a qualifying event ( loss of coverage ) for SEP

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsbankruptcy.html