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Interesting, David. I guess I didn't research my options well enough. Since
I found a cheap policy and am quite healthy, I let it go.
Besides, they were concurrently threatening to sue me for non-compete
reasons. Their number one client immediately picked me up as a contractor to
work on a big writing project. I had been working with this client for the
last year and a half and they had always liked my work.
I knew I wasn't competing because I was hired for a completely different
type of writing project that didn't compete with my former employer's
business whatsoever. Besides, they fired me without any significant
provocation or logic (ie manager was inexperienced and didn't like me
personally) and provided ZERO severance (not even two weeks!), so I needed
desperately to make a living.
I chose to keep quiet, keep working, and let the fires from both sides die
down. Its been almost a year, I'm on my second big contract for the same
organization, so I think they have.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Castro [mailto:thetechwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 3:07 PM
To: mattspam -at- dandaweb -dot- com; TECHWR-L Mailing List
Subject: RE: Insurance for TW
> Well, by the time I made another round of phone calls and forced the
> incompetent HR manager to look up the information, the option to enlist
had
> expired. I looked up my legal options, because his oversight could have
> potentially done me harm, but I had none. The company had no legal
> obligation to provide me the correct COBRA information, stating that it
was
> my responsibility to enroll, not theirs.
I'm intrigued by the information you were given. I worked a contract for a
software shop that was creating COBRA-compliance software (incidentally, the
only time I've ever been fired from a job...but that's another story!). The
responsibility is most *definitely* theirs. You could have sued them, and
from
what I learned, would have had a very good chance of winning, to have them
cover your insurance costs for the full year.
COBRA was created by the government as a way to keep people from going onto
public-assistance health insurance (MediCal, Medicare, etc.). The program
forces the former employers to allow you to remain on their insurance plan
by
paying the premiums that they would have paid, plus what you would have
paid,
plus like 5% for their administrative costs.
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