From a recent addition to Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS):
Claimants do not have to meet the non-disability requirements for Title II (e.g., insured status or an onset date more than 5 months before full retirement age (FRA)) or Title XVI (e.g., income or resources) to qualify for the additional 11 months of health care benefits under COBRA. ...
To extend health care coverage under COBRA based on disability, the individual must:
File for disability benefits (Title II, Title XVI, or concurrent) with COBRA extension, or
File for COBRA extension only. ...
4 comments:
I suspect the reason you don't see more is that the COBRA carriers don't mention this possibility to claimants, or they bury it within pages of legalese that claimants simply don't take the time to read or don't understand.
After all, why would the carrier want to be forced to provide up to an additional 7 months of coverage to a person who is probably a high cost medical service user? No profit in that to the carrier....
I suspect most people cannot afford COBRA once they are unemployed.
With the current backlog, it is unrealistic to expect a decision through the hearing level within the time frame to even allow for the COBRA extension. Folks who are seeking the extension better hope they have a strong enough case that it would be approved by DDS.
COBRA at divorce is an issue, too. Divorce lawyers botch COBRA with Medicare/Social Security coverage. Social Security lawyers botch divorce issues. Neither will work together. When I divorced a doctor after I was disabled and got Social security Disability I got messed over because the two kind of lawyers I needed at one time would not work together.
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