health insurance coverage when changing jobs

[ssilbers]

What is the name of your state? iowa im changing jobs and my wife is pregant and i have diabeties. it is a group policy. will my wife and i be covered or do i havwe to carry a corba plan till baby arrives?

[cbg]

Under the law, pregnancy cannot be considered a pre-existing condition under any circumstances if you are going from a group policy to a group policy. So it doesn't matter what, the pregnancy will be covered under the new policy.

Your diabetes cannot be considered a pre-existing condition IF you have been covered under your existing policy for 12 months or longer. If you have been covered under the existing policy for under 12 months, then the amount of time you have been covered counts towards that. So, for example, if you were covered on the existing policy for 8 months, the longest that the new carrier can consider the diabetes pre-existing is 4 months.

Not all carriers include a pre-ex clause. You will need to find out from the HR department of the new carrier, whether or not this one does.

IF there is a waiting period before the new policy starts, you will need to carry COBRA until you are eligible for the new policy. But they CANNOT legally consider the pregnancy, at least, pre-existing as long as you enroll as soon as you are eligible.

[ecmst12]

On the other hand, if you can avoid it, it's not a good idea to let your health insurance lapse while pregnant! If she were to start having contractions and need to go to the ER (for example) while she didn't have coverage, that's a lot of money you'd be responsible for paying.

[cbg]

I'm sorry, ecmst12, where did I suggest allowing health insurance coverage to lapse? I specifically said that they would need to carry COBRA through the waiting period.

[ecmst12]

Didn't say you did. I was just pointing out that just because pregnancy can't be excluded because of a lapse in coverage, doesn't mean it's a good idea to let there BE a lapse.