Do you rely upon your spouse’s employer for your health insurance coverage? If you do, you could find yourself without coverage after this year’s enrollment.
Why? The reason is simple: the Affordable Care Act.
Under the act, employers are not required to provide health care coverage to an employee’s spouse. In doing so, the act altered the definition of who is a “Dependent” for purposes of offering health care coverage to employees. The term Dependent means a child under the age of 26 years old. This includes all natural born children, adopted children, and stepchildren of the employee.
The term specifically does not include the spouse of the employee. The reasoning behind not including an employee’s spouse as a Dependent is based upon the assumption that the spouse is working and eligible to receive coverage from their own employer (regardless if they are actually employed).
UPS recently informed its employees that health care coverage for their spouses would no longer be made available. UPS estimates that this change will affect nearly 15,000 of its employees’ spouses and save the company $60 million dollars. Similarly, the University of Virginia is dropping employees’ spouses from its plan, in response to spending $7 million dollars to implement the Affordable Care Act at the University.
Many employees now are questioning why their employers are targeting and dropping their spouses. If you find yourself in the situation without health insurance coverage, don’t worry. Go to:
www.insureksrealtors.com where you can find the plan that is right for you. Visit today!
