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SRF Walrus > Layoffs - The downsizing of SRF has begun > Cobra Insurance
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KS Registered User (11/24/02 3:17 pm) Reply	Cobra Insurance This is exactly what is said on documents given to people retired, laid off, or fired from SRF. It may not be legal, but this is the exact wording. IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON CONTINUATION OF BENEFITS • Self-Realization Fellowship DOES NOT have a COBRA plan in place. As a non-profit, religious organization, Self-Realization Fellowship is not required to provide COBRA. Kaiser and United Concordia Customer Service employees are usually NOT AWARE of our exemption from COBRA requirements and they may inform you that you are eligible for COBRA benefits. This is not the case. It is important that you understand that there are no COBRA benefits available to you through Self-Realization Fellowship. • When your eligibility for insurance coverage ends and your coverage is terminated, there are alternatives you may wish to pursue if you wish to continue your coverage. MEDICAL: • If you wish to continue Kaiser coverage as an individual subscriber, you are eligible for various Kaiser plans including the Personal Advantage Plan. This plan is not affiliated with Self-Realization Fellowship in any way. If you choose this option it will solely be between you and Kaiser. To apply for a personal plan, you will need to call their Customer Service Department at 1-800-464-4000. You must call. Self-Realization Fellowship cannot enroll you in any personal plan and there is no automatic roll-over coverage. DENTAL: • If you wish to continue with your dental coverage through United Concordia as an individual subscriber, you would be eligible for various plans. Please contact the United Concordia Customer Service Department at 1-800-937-6432 for further information on these. DISABILITY: • Please note that you will be unable to convert our disability plan into a personal plan when you leave our employ.
srflongago Registered User (11/24/02 3:26 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance This is what I hope the ex-employees would check to see that is is a correct current description for the state and federal programs. The rules on employers get more stringent every year. The policy does keep down the personal costs for the MATAS and those still onboard, since the group policy is cheaper than otherwise. http://www.hmohelp.ca.gov/library/faq/coverage/cal-cobra.asp Edited by: srflongago at: 11/24/02 6:30:53 pm
psychdev Registered User (11/24/02 7:30 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance OK, there may be a religious exemption (along with State and county govts)--I don't know about this provision of Federal law. But the above posting is rather misleading IMO because it suggests that SRF some how saves money by opting out of COBRA, or that the employee would receive free medical benefits by being in COBRA. This is not the case. The ONLY benefit of a COBRA plan is continuing group-coverage (rather than buying a new policy)--the employer pays NOTHING. The employee pays everyting. Even worse, the the insurance company can raise rates after you quit (if they do it for everyone), making it cheaper to buy an individual plan. You are correct that some individuals with pre-existing medical problems may conceivably benefit from COBRA, because they will not be forced to buy individual policies. But typically only people with severe illness will benefit. Most other people end up paying huge premiums and therefore drop their COBRA coverage. IHere's an article from todays (11/23/02) New York Times, documenting all this: "The federal Cobra program, enacted as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, is devised to provide a cushion for those who have recently lost their jobs. It allows workers to maintain their health care coverage for up to 18 months if they assume the full cost of the health coverage provided by their former employer. But many find the cost prohibitive, and ONLY A QUARTER OF WORKERS SAY THEY WOULD KEEP UP THEIR COVERAGE UNDER COBRA BECAUSE OF ITS HIGH COST..." [emphasis added]. Additional quote: "...The high cost of Cobra coverage presents many people who have recently been laid off with a cruel choice. Audrey Robar of Milwaukee, 63, who lost her job at a private social services agency in September, decided to skip the $300 a month Cobra package in the expectation that she would soon find another job." The same article goes on to note that only 42% of small businesses in California provide ANY medical benefits for their employees Edited by: psychdev at: 11/24/02 10:57:11 pm
srflongago Registered User (11/25/02 4:39 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance I have been and am chair of the Health Benefit committee for a very large organization in another state as part of my public service. I am privy to the contracts with health plans. The cost of the health plan for the company is indeed larger if the cobra option is offered, because of the quantifiable risk that the health plan will have to pay out a lot to those with serious continuing illnesses who are only ones who pay for the extended coverage. The underwriters calculate the additional premium to ask to cover this payout. It is a primary benefit for those with cancer, lupus, or other high treatment cost continuiung illnesses, whose insurance costs for getting into another plan are astronomical due to their preexisting illness. Neither you nor the article you quote seem to take this seriously. Those who are well and not immediately involved with people with these problems may not appreciate the seriousness of not having this extended coverage. It is not a humanitarian gesture to have a policy that lacks this feature. I can even cite cases in which employees, terminated because their jobs were abolished, were too sick to arrange for applying for cobra in 60 days, lost their continuing care for cancer, too sick to do the legwork involved in getting quick federal or state aid, and died because of the cessation of of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Real horror stories. The holding period supplied by COBRA is very important to those with seriously illness. Finally, what was the experience that led to enacting Cobra? Many unscupulous money saving companies immediately fired any employee with a serious illness as soon as they got wind of it, always on a pretext. This caused the newly out of work very sick person to have to sue. If it was really a fatal illness, they died before the suit came up. If not, the companies used legal tactics to bankrupt those who sued with legal fees. Why the companies did this was to avoid increased medical premiums based on risk on their next renewal of the health care policies. Cobra lessens the incentive for this; the company risk pool acccepts the risk for 18 months after discharge, and it automatically goes into the calculation of the next set of premiums, it cannot be avoided. This will be the end of the discussion for me. Edited by: srflongago at: 11/25/02 5:22:30 am
member108 Registered User (11/25/02 6:24 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance Cobra sounds like a life saver in some situations. I do know that many of the employees now with SRF are a bit past their prime and extending medical coverage would certainly a nice option for a few. It is good to know that SRF saved money in this deal. Finding out where you rate with the religion for the new age is important. Faye, the mother of compassion, may have been out of the room when the decision was made to save a few bucks in exchange for eliminating this benefit for the employees. Since benefits were only added at all in the last few years, this was certainly decide by the current group of bad ladies and not by Yogananda. I wonder how the membership would feel about this? If a VL Appeal went out asking if the donations they sent in would be better spent on helping the employees or on giant wasteful projects what would they say? Thanks for sharing that srflongago.
psychdev Registered User (11/25/02 10:49 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance MEMBER108: Why do you think SRF saved money by not having COBRA coverage? This is simply not true: If you have COBRA benefits, you (the laid off employee) pay the benefits--not SRF. To repeat, COBRA does NOT mean that the employer continues paying health premiums. As indicated in the New York Times article I posted, 75% of employees refuse COBRA benefits because it's often cheaper to get an individual plan. If you have facts, great, post them for everyone's benefit. If you have hard information that SRF saves money by not having COBRA, great---for example, because they don't have to pay some kind of FDIC-like membership ree. But it's simply untrue that SRF saves money because COBRA requires SRF to continue medical beneifts. That's false. Please stop trying to demagogue this as another perfidious act of the evil SRF empire. Spreading malicious rumors is equally perfidious.
srflongago Registered User (11/25/02 11:51 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance You clearly did not read my explanation. There is a cost attached to providing coverage at the same rate from the same health plan to very sick employees who are discharged and ask for cobra. Their charges are charged to the same health plan, cause the cost of that plan as offered to be higher to both the employer and the employee, and are used as grounds for raising the rates for the organization and remaining employees on the next health care contract at renewal time. There is no free lunch. I guess that the matas have no risk of being terminated, since they do the hiring and firing, so the plight of the former employees is not their concern. Yes, it would be good to explain the situation to the prospective donors and prospective or new employees at every church service and every meeting. They think they belong to or are working for a compassionate organization. This is a simple issue they can understand. Edited by: srflongago at: 11/25/02 1:38:56 pm
username Registered User (11/25/02 4:42 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance Let's hope you're right, that there is a cost savings to srf in not providing cobra benefits. Because if there was no cost savings and they did not provide cobra insurance - we would be talking about a real real real mean organization, wouldn't we?
srflongago Registered User (11/25/02 7:12 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance I am sure SRF would offer the Cobra if it were free. But it is not. Note that the notice reproduced says the healthplan carriers expect that there is a cobra, and you have to tell them otherwise. These carriers have plans for many charitable and religious non-profits. We can conclude that even in California, this is unusually sharp business behavior for a religious organization. It should not be possible. The separation of church and state should make discrimination between requirements for non-profits and profits impossible. But the tax codes and other legislation such as this does the opposite. We live in a funny country. Edited by: srflongago at: 11/25/02 7:13:41 pm
KS Registered User (11/25/02 9:04 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance Remember that SRF did not provide medical insurance at all until about five years ago after someone had a serious medical problem at work. Even then they bluffed not helping but found out they had quite a large liability in the incident. It would be easy to think they provided the insurance to protect themselves, not the employees. In any case, from that viewpoint you can see that in their own eyes they have done quite a bit by providing medical benefits. There baseline and what they were comfortable with was NO benefits. And remember that in the old days you only left if you died or were disloyal. Therefore there was no reason to pay out some of Master's money to provide benefits for those who have fallen from the path. Their ultimate goal is for the organization to survive. Many sins are OK based on that goal. The ideal they preach that "nothing can harm this work" does not extend to finances. The way they treat their employees and monastics is what will reveal them to the world. The more people find out about what goes on behind those gates the better! This is of course a great fear of theirs! Edited by: KS at: 11/25/02 9:08:05 pm
Devotee1970 Registered User (11/26/02 1:49 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance COBRA is a BIG, BIG DEAL to some people. Have you ever been out of work and not been able to get health insurance for your family because your former employer was exempt from COBRA and a family member had a preexisting health condition? Have you ever watched someone whom you love more than life itself die of a disease like leukemia or AIDS? A disease where the treatment costs can go into the (high) hundreds of thousands of dollars. Can you imagine having such an illness yourself . . . knowing you are going to die . . . and having the added burden of not knowing how your family is going to pay for your medical bills after you are gone? Have you ever known someone . . . with young children . . . who has had to declare bankruptcy after her spouse dies because she can’t afford to pay his medical bills? Oh God! . . . the inhumanity. The SRF isn’t responsible for the tragically flawed system of health care coverage in this country, but geeeeez . . . is the marginal cost of COBRA to employers like SRF so high that it’s going to break the bank? If other peoples' spouses and children have to suffer terrible hardships in order for me to become self-realized, I'm not interested. Edited by: Devotee1970 at: 11/26/02 2:12:34 am
psychdev Registered User (11/26/02 2:31 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance <<Their charges are charged to the same health plan, cause the cost of that plan as offered to be higher to both the employer and the employee, and are used as grounds for raising the rates for the organization and remaining employees on the next health care contract at renewal time>> srflongago: I did indeed read your earlier posting but found it difficult to understand. If I'm understanding your latest posting, you're saying that group rates for the entire organization may, potentially, go up at renewal time if COBRA results in more sick people in the risk pool. So the extra cost may come at renewal time, assuming that very sick people are part of the risk pool. In effect, COBRA increases the financial risk for an organization and may possibly increase costs. It may cost nothing or it may cost a lot. It would be great if SRF offered COBRA. But SRF is no different than most small organizations, the majority of which (58% according to NYT article) do not even offer medical benefits--much less COBRA coverage. Is your argument that if SRF offers medical benefits, it must also offer COBRA benefits? SRF is not primarily a "career opportunity" like IBM or Sun Microsystems. Organizations differ greatly in the benefits, and people make their work choices accordingly. Just because SRF is a religious organization (rather than a car factory, for example), does that really mean it has additional duty to provide complete benefits--or for that matter, stock options, life-insurance, day-care, and long vacations? Most religious organizations rely on donated time and energy. If people cannot afford to donate time money and energy to SRF or they don't believe in SRF, that's understandable. But working there is a matter of free choice. Edited by: psychdev at: 11/26/02 3:06:32 am
psychdev Registered User (11/26/02 2:43 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance <<Have you ever watched someone whom you love more than life itself die of a disease like leukemia or AIDS? >> Yes. I worked in the San Francisco AIDS office during the height of the AID epidemic as an epidemiologist. I saw the horrible suffering that resulted, and the outrageous behavior of insurance companies who cut them off from medical benefits. But (and again you are right), it's not SRF's job to fix the flawed medical system in this country. As you know, most small employers do not offer ANY health benefits whatsoever, much less COBRA benefits. Understandably, many people decide to take different jobs so that they can have such benefits. But it's a matter of free choice.
Devotee1970 Registered User (11/26/02 5:00 am) Reply	... (This message was left blank) Edited by: Devotee1970 at: 11/26/02 5:04:54 am
Devotee1970 Registered User (11/26/02 5:03 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance psychdev, I appreciate your position, and I don't want to get into a big discussion about cults (or whatever the SRF is or isn't) and free choices again. My only point is that, regardless of what everyone else is doing, if SRF has the money to provide COBRA benefits, I really wish they would. If they can't afford it, maybe they could stop sending me so much mail or tack on a nickel to the price of each lesson or something. I dunno. I'm not sure that everyone who get jobs there even knows what COBRA is until they desperately need it and it's too late. At least if the SRF offered no insurance (which would obviously be really bad for other reasons), some of these people might have purchased individual plans that would have still been in place when they were laid off. Another complex problem that breaks my heart but that I don't understand that well and can't do anything about. I know other nonprofit organizations make similar administrative decisions . . . my irrational heart just foolishly wants more from one with the mission of spreading teachings of God realization. I gotta go now and gotta let it go -- something I told myself I'd do a long time ago. Peace to you, friends. Edited by: Devotee1970 at: 11/26/02 5:55:14 am
KS Registered User (11/26/02 6:08 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance "It would be great if SRF offered COBRA. But SRF is no different than most small organizations, the majority of which (58% according to NYT article) do not even offer medical benefits--much less COBRA coverage." SRF is not a small place. They have 600 to 900 employees counting monastics. This has been dropping of course and will drop further. Note that medical coverage for the monastics is complete. The retirement plan for monastics is complete. The employees who serve in the same ways deserve less? We think this class structure is OK? Regardless of what is legally correct don't we think an organization which claims to be loving and caring might make different decisions than it has made?
psychdev Registered User (11/26/02 6:59 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance I'm not so sure KS. I think 600 to 900 employees (even if they were all full-time regular employees) still falls in the category of "small business", in terms of the NYT article. It's certainly NOT "big business". For example, just the one corporate branch in Palo Alto where I worked several years ago had around 1,200 employess--and that was just one of many different sites scattered around the country. Your comment about an organization that "is supposed to be loving and caring" goes right to the heart of the matter IMO.... Is it true that a religious organization has an obligation to provide more complete benefits than, say, a car factory? If so, how far does that go end?--life insurance, day care, pensions, vacations...? I think there's room for discussion here, and it's not black and white. It may have been a false-economy and short-sighted on SRF's part not to participate in COBRA. But I'm not sure that it's proof of selfish intentions or and evil heart. It may be just a faceless beurocracy at work. Whatever the case, I respect the honest opinion: <<My only point is that, regardless of what everyone else is doing, if SRF has the money to provide COBRA benefits, I really wish they would. >> Edited by: psychdev at: 11/26/02 7:17:57 am
KS Registered User (11/26/02 7:10 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance I just wanted to be sure people were not thinking SRF was a little place with 50 or 60 employees or even less. They are well above the average size for a company in this country.
username Registered User (11/26/02 7:53 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance Obviously the employee did not have pensions, please tell us the pension plan of the monastics
astral7 Registered User (1/10/03 8:37 am) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance It is easy to say "lets go the more expensive way" when you are running a high profit corporation. Or when the responsibility is not yours to answer for! Talk is CHEAP !!! But by SRF showing some spending care in these situations I would think that those who donate money to the good work of Self-Realization Fellowship, would feel they are not going high on the hog on many things. The biggest problem here may be with the American health care system altogether, inefficient and incomplete in many regards. regards Astral 7
crogman1 Registered User (1/10/03 6:19 pm) Reply	Re: Cobra Insurance *Quote:* But by SRF showing some spending care in these situations I would think that those who donate money to the good work of Self-Realization Fellowship, would feel they are not going high on the hog on many things. A7, You are showing how little you know about the inner workings of SRF. They are not cheap or always looking to save money. Money means nothing to them when it serves their means. They routinely spend thousands on consultants and wasted projects. Some people there earn $140 to $170 per hour as pseudo employees while members make $10/hour. Giant projects are started and stopped, while some waste on and on. Money is not the reason they don't give employees better benefits! See this message thread: pub78.ezboard.com/fsrfwal...ID=3.topic

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