Posted on 06/03/2016 7:01:15 AM PDT by NEMDF
OMAHA — Deuel County Deputy Mike Hutchinson, who continues to recover from four gunshot wounds suffered during a December ambush while serving an arrest warrant, has lost his family health insurance because he’s not working at least 30 hours a week.
Hutchinson hopes that officials in the small western Nebraska county can find about $1,500 a month to temporarily continue his group health coverage — under a law known as COBRA — until he can return to work.
“I didn’t ask to be shot,’’ Hutchinson said Wednesday. “I was wounded on the job. ... I’m not asking for anything special. Just don’t cancel my insurance.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nptelegraph.com ...
He’s out of work due to an insurance-covered, work-related injury, and so the group plan drops him because he’s not working enough? That’s a novel way to cut expenses, but I can’t see how it can be permitted, otherwise every person who has to be out of work for any length of time due to illness or injury can be dropped.
This is the reason for long term disability insurance at your job in addition to the health insurance. It is usually offered but does have some contribution necessary from the employee as well as the employer.
This insurance takes over usually after 60 days and covers medical expenses as well as lost income at usually about 60% of your pay (non taxable, BTW).
I absolutely believe in long-term disability insurance, and have worked with the product for years. It is often overlooked by people in doing their financial planning. (Have my own individual policy purchased in 1993, in addition to employer LTD coverage.)
From what I can gather, his actual income is being replaced by the worker’s comp coverage, but he did not anticipate the increase in health insurance premium, due to being forced to the COBRA rates. I think part of the problem is that he is a county employee, in a small county. It seems like larger municipal jurisdictions would have more comprehensive benefits for this type of situation.
One would think this would be covered by workman’s comp.
According to the story, his medical costs from the shooting are job related and are completely covered by workman's comp. The coverage if for his family or future injuries. If his wife was in a car accident or he fell down and broke his leg then he has no coverage for that.
COBRA is ‘continuation of benefits relief act’. It is basically your insurance that you had on the job but don’t now because of leaving employment or other. It is essentially what your employer paid plus your contribution.
It is meant as a stop gap to provide insurance (even if full cost) to an employee/former-employee.
I’ve had to pay for it when I left on job and didn’t get my new job insurance for a month or two.
Like SD and LTD, Cobra use requires some level of financial commitment from the person, a wise move for a family man.
That said, his county or whatever government entity should have covered him. They should as a minimum pick up the Cobra payments.
This municipality really dropped the ball on this one. Unbelievable!
This sounds fishy to me.
Guy is wounded on duty and they’re dropping his insurance because he’s not working 30hrs per week?
There’s got to be more to this story.
Actually, that IS how it works. My question is why the police union not pick up insurance coverage for the family insurance (cobra) portion. Is he a union member, and if not, why not? You would think cobra coverage by a police union would be a standard bebefit.
Depending on which state he’s in, his family should be covered my family medicaid as he would be low income right now most likely. Some states are good that way while others aren’t.
Secondary disability coverage can be a funny thing, too. You pay for it and there are some weird stipulations regarding when and if you can use it. For exple, my husband was required to use up all his vacation time before he could use the disability. Then, some things are covered, some things aren’t. Finally, its only good for a few weeks.
Nobody really realizes just how naked you can become when injured on the job until it happens.
oh..here’s another one I’ve seen. You pay for top coverage only to find that your policy was switched by your employer without your knowledge or consent, and the only paper work existing is for the cheaper policy which covers less. Try fight that on 66% of your income from a hospital bed and noe you need an attorney...its a racket.
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