December 23 Covered California Deadline for January 1 Coverage Approaching Quickly!

Covered CA Folders

We’re not in the habit of making public service announcements, but this one needs to be heard!

The advent of Covered California has been changing my employment law practice — and for the better.

It used to be that a terror among clients being wrongfully terminated was what they would do about their health insurance.  In fact, negotiation over their ability to maintain their insurance would sometimes end up “driving the bus” — such that they would accept less money than they might deserve overall just so they could stay insured for longer.  (This was particularly a problem for older workers and those with pre-existing conditions.)

Now that’s changing.

Losing a job, especially a long-term job, is still traumatic — but in terms of personal economics it is much more survivable.  At least in California, the worse you’d face is that you’d have to buy your own insurance — and it’s available, regardless of preexisting conditions!  For some, it might cost more than COBRA; for many (and I’d guess most) it will cost less — often far less — and, unlike COBRA, it won’t expire.

The CoveredCA.com website — one of the best state sites in the country (although apparently Kentucky, home of Ft. Knox, is considered the gold standard) is now running smoothly.  Reports keep coming in from people whose monthly insurance premiums will be under $100 — and in some cases under $10.  (And, in other cases, free.  Medicaid expansion, you know.)  The terror of economic ruin due to health care costs is receding.

People who want insurance in effect by January 1 — whether long-term unemployed, freshly discharged, or just inclined to tell the boss to “take this job and shove it” — have to sign up through the exchanges by December 23.  You can do so later — but it leaves you uninsured for a while — and why put up with that if you can avoid it?

One problem is that the message is getting out pretty well to the sorts of people who read this blog — ones who can speak English, for example — but not so much to others.  If anyone out there would like to translate this post into Spanish — and Vietnamese, Korean, and Mandarin — I’d love to post them in other languages.

People need to know that the worst, when it comes to paying for health insurance coverage, is over.  Go ahead and fight about Obamacare (or California’s version of it) if you want; it’s the law.  Now we’re talking about whether people will get the benefits coming to them.  Can we agree that letting them know what’s available is just morally right?


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)