employer medical insurance: policies different for some employees

[marvayvous]

What is the name of your state? I'm in Kentucky but my employer is worldwide with its main US offices physically located in New Jersey.

My employer changed our medical insurance last year. Some of our employees had been with an HMO, however this option was not available to many of us, due to the insurance company not having an HMO in our area, so we were covered by a PPO.

Those of us not in the HMO were forced to convert to an HSA type of insurance, Lumenos. Those in the HMO were allowed to stay in the Aetna HMO insurance.

The Lumenos insurance has been a big disappointment to the older workers in the company. Basically, the plan works like this: company "gives" us $1500 of money to spend on medical expenses, and after that, WE are liable for the next $1500 per person covered per year (if 2 are covered, then that's $3000/yr, for instance) before the "regular insurance" coverage kicks in. Obviously, older workers stand to be at greatest risk for having to spend that $1500 out of pocket due to increased healthcare needs as we age.

The lucky Aetna-insured people continue on in their normal insurance world, with no out of pocket payment, in order to have regular insurance coverage.

1. Is it legal for my employer to cover some of us under one insurance and other employees under another insurance?
2. Would this qualify for age-related discrimination, in view of older workers having increased healthcare needs?

Thanks in advance for your knowledge on this, I'm totally clueless about insurance rules.

[somarco]

You can please some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time.

1) yes
2) no

Your choices are:

A) Move to an area where you can get HMO benefits
B) Quit
C) Quit complaining