Overtime and not meeting goals and boss mad about overtime. What to do?

[goldfinch]

FWIW, I don't think I'd let go of private insurance and rely on the risk pools until I knew whether they will survive the election.

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This is the Minnesota risk pool and was not part of health care reform. It has been around since 1978 and is well respected in the state. If health care reform goes in the toilet this risk pool will survive. If health care reform is not trashed the risk pool may not be necessary.

For the Minnesota risk pool you do have to go on COBRA first and use up that benefit and cannot have a period where you are uninsured. In contrast, the federal pools required that you be uninsured for six months before you get on the federal mandated pool. Which stinks and is one of the reason the federal pools have not done well.

This is all rather complex because under HIPAA, which predated the current health care reform laws, each state was required to have a plan in place for (most) people who are leaving a group health plan and who were insured the prior 18 months. Each state could design its own solution. Some had risk pools. Some had conversion plans. Some had special insurance plans. There was no regulation on cost and often the cost was so high that next to no one used the plan. There also could be significant coverage limits. Long before HIPAA came into effect Minnesota already had a risk pool and it has some of the best coverage and lowest cost of any such pool in the nation.

The big problems with state solutions were cost of coverage and often states did not provide any guaranteed plan to people who were uninsured and not coming off of a group health plan. Hence the work on health care reform.