I recently changed jobs and the worst part has been the gap in Health Insurance. The insurance with my old job stopped on the last day of employment, and the insurance with the new job won’t start until the 1st of next month, so I have a gap in health insurance of about 1 month.
The solution if you are healthy is to get short term insurance, but if you are not healthy or you had some health problems in the past, you are not eligible for short term insurance.
Employers, please get together and don’t let there be a gap in healthcare insurance for new hires. I am not sure what the solution is, but here are some ideas.
- If you are the employer that is leaving, let the employee’s insurance run up to 1 month from their last day.
- I you are the new employer, let health insurance be effective on the 1st day of employment.
The solution above would allow for minimal costs for both employers and would allow the employee to have no gaps in health insurance and not have to either 1) have no insurance or 2) have costly short term insurance.