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Comment by gcr | Hacker News Reader

This is a bullshit package because of the healthcare.

I was laid off from a different company with access to 18 months of COBRA. Dropbox is offering a third of that. Lots of job searches take longer than 6 months, so the employees are going to be left high and dry right when they need it the most.

For the non-Americans, my COBRA expenses are about USD$2,000/month for me and my partner. I’m paying as much for healthcare as I am for rent. Even so, it’s still financially better to take COBRA than pay out of pocket for my prescriptions.

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I wonder if they meant paid COBRA of 6 months, bc 18 months is like the minimum to offer continuing coverage. COBRA coverage is a Federal Law for large employers.

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-a...

"Q11: How long does COBRA coverage last? COBRA requires that continuation coverage extend from the date of the qualifying event for a limited period of 18 or 36 months. The length of time depends on the type of qualifying event that gave rise to the COBRA rights. A plan, however, may provide longer periods of coverage beyond the maximum period required by law."

All West Coast states have free healthcare (medicaid) available if your income is below a certain threshold. And there is no time limit on that. It won’t help with rent, but at least these folks won’t be completely without healthcare access.

There's pretty much no way they'd qualify for Medicaid if they were a dev at Dropbox. The income limit for Medi-Cal is $20,783 for a single adult, $28,208 for a household of two adults. Chances are they were past that income limit the first few months of the year. You don't just immediately qualify after making $140k annualized for the first 10 months and then hit $0 one day.

Plus, they're getting 16 weeks of salary. At $140k/yr, that's $2,692/wk. Lets say their severance starts next week. There's 8 weeks left in the year. So they'll get 8 weeks of pay in 2025. $2,692 * 8 = $21,538. So no, they won't qualify for Medicaid at all in 2025 if they make that much as a single person.

True but even making $140k/year does qualify you for tax credits on ACA marketplace health insurance plans. COBRA is kind of obsolete, honestly. You should be switching over to a insurance plan purchased through your state's health insurance marketplace.

Totally agree there. Chances are they'll be better served with a marketplace plan unless they've got a complicated health situation/very specific care that might be questionablly covered without thoroughly shopping around.

I'm just pushing back at the idea someone can go from making six figures and turn around and hop on Medicaid. It's not that simple. It should be IMO, but it isn't.

Even if one does qualify for those programs, the sign-up time is on the order of almost a year here in California. Applications are Supposed To Be™ reviewed within 45 days, which is already a long wait, but they are using the new normal “due to higher than usual volume, fuck you” approach just like every other modern bureaucracy.

https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/individuals/Pages/Steps-to-Medi-Cal.... sez “Due to the high volume of new applications, the process is taking longer than normal”, and I have secondhand experience of six+ month wait times.

Expenses incurred during the coverage gap need additional approval for retroactive repayment, meaning you have to have the funds to pay upfront for however many months/years the sign-up process takes, then once your coverage starts you have to apply/wait/hope to be paid back for everything paid out-of-pocket which might just get denied: https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/formsandpubs/forms/Forms/mc210a0907....

You have to be destitute to qualify for medicaid

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