week of worry

[aroraborealis]

This is my week of worrying about things. First it's housing, and how to deal with having a sublet while I'm in Guatemala, or how to deal with not having an apartment when I get back from Guatemala. Then it's vaccinations and diseases I could get while in Guatemala. Now it's what will I do about health insurance if I don't get laid off, and instead I have to quit? Honestly, I can't see spending $300/mo on COBRA, but thinking about being uninsured makes me nervous.

Ugh.

Comments

[rdhdsnippet.livejournal.com]

If you don't have any weird preexisting conditions, and you're pretty certain you'll rejoin the workforce after you get back, you could go with an individual plan. It'll be a lot less than 300 a month.

How long is your trip again? COBRA can be done retroactively for 2 or 3 months, if you need it, too.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

No weird preexisting conditions, and i do need to explore individual insurance options. I just want catastrophe insurance, reallly. My trip is 4 months, and I'm likely to stop working for a month or two before I leave, so I can use the retroactive option for the time I'm in the country, at least. Pesky non-national health insurance. *hmph*

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

when I was laid off I still had to pay COBRA out of pocket. It was $240/mo., but I think that's what my employer had been paying for me per month, so it was supposed to be the same amount, same coverage. Maybe your employer has a different sort of severance package where they pay your health care for awhile?

If you're going to be out of the country it doesn't make sense to have COBRA because you mostly can't use it. You don't want to be uninsured though, because of the potential of someone down the line saying you have a pre-existing condition, or in case of accidents. There are travel or health insurance policites that are geared more toward the emergency end of things. They have high deductibles, but cheap premiums. Hopefully something like that will both cover any health issues as well as count as having continuous coverage.

Your HR dept or some sort of student affairs office might be able to help you find these types of insurance companies; they get used a lot by people graduating and thus coming off their parents insurance and are intended for the short term between graduation and employment.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Harvard does a special deal for employees who get laid off, where for the first year after, you pay 150% of what you'd pay as a regular employee, which would keep the price below $100/mo for up to a year, and THEN I'd go to COBRA.

You're right about the uselessness of COBRA out of the country, though, and travel insurance is a good idea, and I hadn't thought about the continuous coverage issue, which probably shouldn't matter much, as future insurance is likely to be a group plan, but it may be worth keeping in mind.

Ugh, again!

[(Anonymous)]

This won't help while you're traveling, but while in the US there are a number of free-care programs available that can be gotten into with relatively minimal paperwork. Check with your PCP.