COBRA question

[jackl]

I called our exchange - Covered California - and asked about a pretend client I had in that situation. I was told by the agent unequivocally that would not be considered a qualifying event, regardless of whether the employer contributed a portion of the COBRA. They would not take into consideration what was posted on Healthcare.gov because they aren't required to held that up because it's not an actual law, regulation or even an industry standard. The person I spoke to suspects that the information posted there is errant.

Very interesting...

I don't think I'd chance something like this, personally.

 

[Conundrum]

Great news. One of our covered dependents received benefits at their job so we can remove them from the plan when COBRA kicks in according to the administrator. Reduces the cost to below what we would pay for a ACA silver plan. I’m sticking with COBRA for the full 18 mo so I am good until January 2020.

 

[cathy63]

I'm just going to leave the following information here, FWIW.

Employer Benefits Article:
We recently spoke with representatives at Health and Human Services—the folks actually responsible for enrolling people in individual coverage via the Marketplace—who indicated confusion over the change on the website and stated that their enrollment system is still not set up to provide a SEP to an individual in such circumstances. In particular, they noted that the information on the healthcare.gov website is not binding upon them and that they must process enrollments according to the way their system is set up.

Wow, that's crazy! If the Federal Government, which would supersede CA law in this case, acknowledges that they have been providing inaccurate information to the public for over a year-and-a-half, and still haven't fixed it despite being notified more than 9 months ago (the linked article is dated 8/2/17), how is the consumer supposed to know what to believe?