People are Missing Out: Cal-COBRA Subsidy Confusion

Many people are missing out on the 65% COBRA subsidy for their health insurance; they just can’t figure out what they’re supposed to do! This leaves them both unemployed and uninsured.

This post and our Cal-COBRA subsidy fact sheets are directed towards employers to enable you to assist your terminating employees in signing up for this valuable benefit. We are also sending this to our entire list so that you can forward this information to friends and relatives who are struggling with obtaining their subsidy. 

We became concerned when we heard from several of our small employer clients that their former employees were having difficulty signing up for the program. So we decided to follow several of our clients’ experiences in the Cal-COBRA (under 20 employees) market and compile critical information that will help others have a successful experience.

Based on our research, we recommend you assist your terminating employees in several ways: 

1. Provide an information sheet which describes your insurer’s subsidy application process. We have created employee fact sheets for Cal-COBRA and the subsidy with Blue Shield, Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser, and Cal Choice. Just download the sheet for your carrier and distribute it!

2. Act as cheerleader; assure your people that, though it can be a chore, they can work through the requirements and gain a valuable benefit.

3. If your group’s carrier is Anthem Blue Cross, provide a termination letter which verifies their eligibility for the subsidy. The termination letter is simple.  The only requirements here are that the termination is involuntary—the employee did not quit—and the termination date. This saves you more paperwork later on and speeds up your employee’s subsidy application. 

Click the appropriate link below to download a PDF of the Cal-COBRA Subsidy Employee Fact Sheet for your carrier:

Anthem Blue Cross

Blue Shield

Kaiser

California Choice

Click here for our COBRA Subsidy Basic Fact Sheet for Employers

Comments

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This is very helpful. I very much appreciate the specific PDF of the Cal-COBRA subsidy sheet that we can download for each carrier. Thank you for the informative post!