mouseworks

My first HMOs appears to either not cancel policies for non-payment or is taking COBRA stimulus payments for people who couldn't afford the new special jacked up premiums. I quit paying them in early winter of 2009, got a four month contract job that put me into another HMO, which got me another COBRA extension when I was laid off.

The first insurance company wanted something like $300 a month for several months before it would apply the stimulus subsidy, but didn't cancel my policy when I stopped paying. I was apparently still on their rolls for the time that I was working on the other job, with the other insurance.

I sent them back their card, with a cc'ed letter of explanation about not being on their policy since early 2009. The Dept. of Labor seems to be oblivious to the games being played with the stimulus money. What I got from them was a form for appealing not getting COBRA, not a form for getting double COBRA. They've got no mechanism in place for dealing with insurance companies deciding that the subsidy is worth more than the premium since if I'd used their insurance, I'd have owed them the back premiums and the stimulus money was twice what my part of the premium would have been.

That this would be an obvious thing for insurance companies to do doesn't seem to have entered the minds of the Labor Department.

Both companies asked for significant money up front before applying COBRA stimulus subsidies. With the second guys, I had it to pay them once, and was able to get things cleared up with a phone call.

Accounting is so confusing to insurance companies was how my second company explained things.

Better to send the stimulus money to the people on COBRA except that we'd probably spend it unwisely instead of letting the government spend it unwisely and help the health insurance industry sock some bucks away.