Can an employer just 'pick' a health plan for you.

[JessicaR]

Nope, we are not family. I sent her an email today to let her know we still haven't received the materials. So I know nothing about the changes.
Needless to say we are annoyed. They annoy us quite a bit with their changes. They change how they pay you in mid-job, decide one day to just do holdbacks. It's just another thing.......
I really wonder how much is legal actually. LOL

That would annoy the crud out of me too. If you wonder about their practices maybe you really should find out if they are operating within their rights. Maybe they aren't! I guess that just opens a different can of worms though.

In any event I hope you get the info you are seeking and can make changes if you desire.

 

[bicker]

No, I don't believe the HR person had the authority to choose the tier of the health plan for you. A company can change insurance companies. However, if there are three tiers of a certain plan that are being offered to the eligible employees, the the eligible employe would choose which tier.

Perhaps, perhaps not. First, this will vary based on company rules, and based on state law. Second, if there is a difference in price to the company between two tiers, then companies are generally allowed to restrict certain plans to certain employees (and, of course, eliminate certain plans entirely). That could lead to a situation where a change in offerings or rules ends up, as you suggested:

If there was only one option, then I could see it being chosen for you.

And even if there were more than one option, if they had different costs to the employer, and those costs were being pulled from individual business unit budgets, then I can again see a path whereby a specific plan would be chosen for you, to keep the total cost within the allocated budget.

Again, this will vary based on company rules, and based on state law.

 

[kimmar067]

We heard the other day from the office manager that our health insurance changed. She picked a plan for us comparable to what we use to have because she had to hurry and give them an answer because they switched agents. It makes no sense to us and now we are paying about $30 a month more. It's not the same plan across the board. It's a tiered thing and employees have a choice of 3 levels. We don't even know any particulars about it. She were suppose to send us the information last week so we could see it and we still don't have it.
Does this make any sense. Can an employer even do this?

ETA: I tried to clarify in post #7

...ours did....

 

[lillygator]

choosing the plan for the company overall is one thing - you should have the opportunity to choose your tier of plan that is best fitted for you and your family. Did you speak to anyone in your HR department?

 

[eliza61]

Haha don't I wish. The office manager is the wife of the company owner. No HR. It's a tiny company so she's it. Her concern is her bottom line, not the employee. Oh the things I could tell about this company. We are just biding our time till another job comes through.

If the company is that small where the owner and his wife are pretty much wearing all the hats it may be that the companys bottom line could very well be yours also.
small business a lot of times do not have the buying power with insurance companies that larger companies do. If she was not concerned about the bottom line the business would go under and you'd be out of a job. A large number of small business don't even offer health care.
It's a very tough business environment right now. I don't envy any small business owner.

 

[MickeysMommy]

Mine did and the majority of us were not happy. They stayed with the same company but the plan is worse. They "claim" to keep it the same would have raised the rates by thirty percent. But it still went up twelve dollars and the benefits are worse. I would have preferred to pay the additional nine dollars and the benefits stay the same.

Same here. "They" say it's cheeper for them but my co-pays used to be $10 and are now $25. Not that that is a TON of money but it is a lot if I have to go to the drs office quite a bit.

 

[Jennasis]

Maybe the plan they picked will turn out to be a good one? Just trying to find the bright side of things.

 

[Pakey]

If the company is that small where the owner and his wife are pretty much wearing all the hats it may be that the companys bottom line could very well be yours also.
small business a lot of times do not have the buying power with insurance companies that larger companies do. If she was not concerned about the bottom line the business would go under and you'd be out of a job. A large number of small business don't even offer health care.
It's a very tough business environment right now. I don't envy any small business owner.

ITA. We are a much larger company and still, a family plan for health insurance costs us about $2000 per month per employee; I can't imagine what the premiums would be for a small employer.

We do not give our employees any choices on tiers. It is what it is. We do not notify them in advance and give them options. We have different plans for executive employees, administrative employees and production employees. Only the executive employees are given any options (and we pay for the difference to have better coverage).

 

[jstnmarsh]

choosing the plan for the company overall is one thing - you should have the opportunity to choose your tier of plan that is best fitted for you and your family. Did you speak to anyone in your HR department?

Yeah, this should have been the case but some companies take such matter in their own hands and decide the further proceeding for their employees. There is no law that the employers should provide the right to the employee to select the best tier of the available insurance plans. I think that this right should be given to the employees to select the plan that they would like to have among the ones that are sliced down by the employers. This would help have a better relation between the employee and the employer.

 

[bicker]

I think that's easy-to-say but practically impossible to do without effectively giving the employee the ability to incur excess expense onto the employer. Often, such flexibility either has an absolute cost, and/or a cost associated with managing benefits, and/or a cost associated with the negative impact of such a choice on what the company provides to others. How would an employee, in the scenario you outlined, feel about being able to choose the best available option, from their standpoint, and thereby agreeing to be charged a surcharge covering all three of these costs? Given that two of them are intangibles, I suspect too many employees would react to such an option more with intense prejudice rather than with appreciation for being given the choice (and that's going to be the case even though they could always choose simply to do what the employer was planning to offer them originally). Some people don't consider something a foundation for establishing, as you said, "better relation", if they actually have to pay a surcharge that they may not even believe is warranted, even if it is "worth it" or "fair" in an objective sense. What such folks care about is that their sense of entitlement was not fulfilled. And there is nothing wrong with that: Employees are not required to consider options logically and rationally; they are absolutely entitled to view such things strictly emotionally. It is the aforementioned second-guessing and this emotional aspect that undercuts the ability to employers to offer more options.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

The corporation that I work for just underwent a similar change, although it was all above board.

Our insurance premiums have increased a significant amount (from employee paying 0 to now paying $95 per pay check...) and it has caused me to decrease my insurance.

I can only hope that government intervention is on the way. Insurance companies are bleeding the employers and that is passed on to the employee. No one wins.

C'mon health care reform! Can't go into effect soon enough for me!

 

[Carly_Roach]

The corporation that I work for just underwent a similar change, although it was all above board.

Our insurance premiums have increased a significant amount (from employee paying 0 to now paying $95 per pay check...) and it has caused me to decrease my insurance.

I can only hope that government intervention is on the way. Insurance companies are bleeding the employers and that is passed on to the employee. No one wins.

C'mon health care reform! Can't go into effect soon enough for me!

Same here, although I'm bummed that the public option wasn't made available.

The attitude we get from the small employer where I work is that we should consider ourselves lucky we even have an insurance option. People are told frequently that it's going to be dropped if it gets any higher. Bickering over petty details like what's offered in the insurance plan is useless - take it or leave it.

Every year the premiums for the employer go up, the jacked-up rates get passed on to the employee, the benefits go down, and anyone who tries to use it is worried that they'll be dropped if they get sick. It's considered "catastrophic health insurance" rather than anything our employees can use with any kind of frequency.

It's like paying $120.00 a month (minium for a single person) on a gamble that the insurance might be there if the employee really needed it.

 

[bicker]

Our premiums doubled this year, and we're still among the most generous employers in the area. (My wife's is the most generous, so we're doubly-lucky I suppose.)

 

[dennis99ss]

sounds like an easy fix. Just change the plan tier you are on. fill out the paperwork etc.

re employers making the decision. We do not give employees a choice in the plan. We try to do the right thing, pay full premiums for employees, and some for the families depending on the employee's status/needs. But, when you are hit with 15-20 percent increases each year, changing plans is not only an option, it is a necessity.

What such folks care about is that their sense of entitlement was not fulfilled. And there is nothing wrong with that: Employees are not required to consider options logically and rationally; they are absolutely entitled to view such things strictly emotionally. It is the aforementioned second-guessing and this emotional aspect that undercuts the ability to employers to offer more options.

when we tried to do the right thing to one employee, and put his family on the plan, the extra 1200 per month became an entitlement to him, and we, as the employer, do not get the credit we believe we deserve as a result of it. he doesn't see the $$ so it is like it is not there.

Same here. "They" say it's cheeper for them but my co-pays used to be $10 and are now $25. Not that that is a TON of money but it is a lot if I have to go to the drs office quite a bit.

but, your employer who is paying the premium is paying a ton more money still, even though your co pay increased.

The attitude we get from the small employer where I work is that we should consider ourselves lucky we even have an insurance option. People are told frequently that it's going to be dropped if it gets any higher. Bickering over petty details like what's offered in the insurance plan is useless - take it or leave it.

You should consider yourselves lucky. Healthcare costs run us about 5% of gross income, and is our third largest group of expenditures, behind salary(service company), and only slightly behind lease/rent costs.