My employer announced that they will no longer be covering working spouses on health insurance plans. They say the next move will be to cut all spouses, not only working ones. I am part-time and have my insurance through my husband, and I live in fear of losing it. My company says that spousal exclusions are going to become the norm. The idea of losing the ability to have insurance through my spouse completely scares me. Anyone else dealing with this?
Terrifying prospect. I fear this happening more frequently. I'm on my husband's health insurance also. He's a professor at a state university, a state employee, & major budget cuts are coming.
Sadly this practice appears to be on the rise and it is unrelated to healthcare reform, it is simply gouging. In many cases the spousal exclusion is when your spouse can get coverage through their own employment. It doesn't mean you can't get coverage, only that you cannot choose which plan (between your spouse and you) offers the best deal. That may be the situation in your case.
It is an awful thing, especially for people with chronic illness, such as PWD.
However, we can have a huge influence on the cost of health insurance for every employee. Here is an example: I worked at a small firm in HR; there were 80-100 employees total. We were able to keep health care costs very low, and the employee cost was unbelievably inexpensive. Then one year we had two things happen: one woman had a really difficult pregnancy that require lots of tests, monitoring, hospitalization and then another employee's son was diagnosed with cancer. Because of the cost of those two spouse/dependent situations insurance costs for the provider rose to all time high levels and upper management had to make the decision to raise the employee cost and copay--- significantly for everyone.
It is certainly not a good thing when one or two people on the plan can make that big a difference. A lot of it has to do directly with the size of the company.
I have always been grateful that my husband works for the federal government; I am one small fish in a very large pond.
Sorry to disagree - don't know if it is true in this case but in many cases it is directly related to ACA. Because ACA is driving insurance premiums way up AND does not mandate that employers offer family coverage, this is one way to cut costs.