Open season 365 days a year
The federal health insurance hunting season's over, but Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says if you fall in love next year, you can have your own open season.
Things may be slow now, but what happens if you fall in love next year? And the other party does too?
What if, after years of searching, Mr. or Ms. Right comes along? You get married. Then what? Reality sets in. Because you are in a self-only federal health plan, so what do you do? Do you let your new spouse fend for himself or herself until the next open season? Not to worry, Uncle Sam has thought of everything, including marriage, birth, death, divorce or adoption.
By now — either by choice or inertia — most federal workers and retirees have picked the health plan that will cover them, and their family, in 2017. Because of changing premiums, benefit coverage and networks, experts say that between 30-40 percent of the people in the FEHBP program should change plans every year. Unfortunately, only about 6 percent do change.
But there are situations — the government calls them ‘life events’ — that permit workers and retirees to have their own personal one-man or one-woman open season. They include getting married, or divorced. Being widowed. Having a baby or adopting a child. And in some cases, if you move to another part of the country, you get your own special open season. So how do these special, personalized open seasons work?
Today at 10 a.m., we have a special trifecta Your Turn radio show. My lead-off guest is Walton Francis.
Curious about the new military personnel system that kicks in during 2018? We’ll talk about it with Mike Meese, the COO of the AAFMA, and then do an exit interview with Steve Bauer, long-time executive director of the Federal Employees Education and Assistance Fund. Steve is one of the best-known, best-liked folks in the federal family. He’s got some stranger-than-fiction stories about getting big chunks of cash to distressed feds after floods and hurricanes. Listen if you can at FederalNewsRadio.com or in the metro Washington-Baltimore area at 1500 AM.
Don’t miss an episode of Your Turn with Mike Causey. Subscribe on iTunes and have the episode downloaded automatically to your phone or desktop. You can also download past episodes.
Nearly Useless Factoid
In the 1961 Japanese horror movie Mothra, the singing duo The Peanuts summoned the giant flying insect with the song Mosura no uta (“Song of Mothra”).
Source: Wikipedia
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Mike Causey
Mike Causey is senior correspondent for Federal News Network and writes his daily Federal Report column on federal employees’ pay, benefits and retirement.
Follow @mcauseyWFED
