Q: I am a retired postal annuitant on Medicare. I heard that letters were sent out in the spring inviting insurers to offer a health care supplement for people such as me, so that I don’t have to pay for a full-blown plan when I also have Medicare Parts A and B. I cannot find any insurers offering such a plan for 2011. Are there any plans being offered? Who offers them? Are there any fee-for-service insurers? A: I don’t know if OPM had any takers. We won’t know that until it makes its Federal Employees Health Benefits open season…
Browsing: FEHB
Q. I have a daughter who is currently covered under FEHB and is 21. She will be 22 this November and I understand she will qualify for coverage again under FEHB effective Jan. 1, 2011. She currently works part time and is not eligible for insurance through her employer; however it is possible she may become full time/permanent within the next month. She would not be eligible for insurance until she has been a full-time employee for 90 days, which means she could possibly qualify for insurance through her employer by Jan. 1. My question is: Can she decline insurance…
Q. My brother in law, who was a senior arbitrator with the IRS, advises my wife that I should arrange for health plan coverage into retirement, which is about six years from now, God willing. He is in the CSRS program and I am in the FERS. He tells my wife, his sister, that I have to apply for payroll deductions for three years to be eligible for “survivorship” forever with no premium payments. Unfortunately, I find no such language when reviewing our plan, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, in Conn. I do find language referring to a TCC for…
Q. I am currently a FERS employee with FEHB dependent coverage. My daughter lost her health coverage when she turned 23 years of age on Aug. 31, 2009. She is a graduate student and I would like to know how to re-enroll her before the Jan. 1, 2011 start date under the new health plan? Is she automatically enrolled because I already have dependent coverage? Will there be an increase in premiums for my FEHB coverage, if so how much? A. Information about how to do that will be included in your open season packet. The premiums for self and…
Q. My husband and I are both retired annuitants on CSRS. We have always had FEHB Self and Family coverage, with him as primary member. It may be cheaper for us to each opt for Self Only coverage this coming open season. Since I have always been covered under his plan, how do we go about changing plans? Is there a way to ensure that I will be covered on my own before we change his option? A. You can find out how to make the change by going to http://opm.gov/insure/health/planinfro/enroll.asp#annuitants. Since the changes will occur simultaneously, he cannot remain enrolled in…
Q. I know this question was asked, but I feel it wasn’t not properly answered. Under the new health reform act, will family premiums go up due to dependants coverage stretching to 26? Will it also affect annuitant/employee only also? And after all these years of having only employee only and employee plus family, why couldn’t another tier be added … annuitant/employee plus one. A. Premiums are unlikely to be affected by the small number of dependent children who will be retained (or added briefly) to a parent’s self-and-family plan option until they reach age 26. The proposal to add…
Q. When is BRAC restored leave paid out? A. It will be included in the lump-sum payment of your annual leave when you’re separated, or it can be used with other annual leave to keep you on the rolls past your scheduled separation date in order to qualify for retirement or Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) coverage. If you move to a non-DoD federal agency, or to a DoD installation that is not being closed or realigned, the restored leave is paid in a lump sum.
Q. My wife retired in 2008 after 35 years of service. She had the federal health care insurance for 20 years. After we were married, she chose to no longer carry the federal plan. For the past 20 years she has been covered through my employer’s insurance. I was employed with the Baltimore City Fire Department for 33 years. If I were to lose my health care insurance, is there any way that she could get coverage for herself through the federal plan? A. No. The only way she could regain coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program is…
Q. Both my wife and I are federal employees, I work for the Bureau of Prisons and my wife for the Postal Service. She currently carries the health insurance because the post office covers a greater portion of the cost. I understand that I must carry health insurance for myself for three years before I retire in order to be covered in retirement if she were to die before me. But I heard that since I am already covered in FEHB through my wife, if she were to die I would be able to continue coverage through the BOP, without…
Q. My wife works in private industry and has her own heath plan. My wife will lose her heath care when she retires. I have a single coverage heath plan as a federal employee. I’ve had the coverage for more than five years. If I retire, can I change from single to family coverage? Or, do I have to be under a family plan for five years prior to retirement to have family coverage in retirement? A. Yes, you can change from self to self and family during any open season.