Laid-off hospital workers won’t get COBRA

Adventist Health is not offering employees laid from jobs at South Coast Medical Center the opportunity to obtain group health insurance under COBRA, the federal law that requires most employers to provide access to group health insurance for employees who are laid off.

Adventist spokeswoman Alicia Gonzalez said the health care firm does not have to provide COBRA because it is a faith-based entity. Adventist Health Systems is affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Employees say that contradicts the employee handbook, in which COBRA is noted as a benefit, according to Mary Nobriga, a transportation employee who’s job will end Tuesday.

COBRA — which stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 — allows some terminated employees to extend their health insurance through a self-paid plan.

COBRA insurance can be costly for the unemployed, but under the recent federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, those with COBRA coverage pay only 35% of the COBRA premiums.

The remaining 65% is reimbursed to the coverage provider through a tax credit.

That would make COBRA coverage very affordable for her, Nobriga said.

But Nobriga and other employees laid off from their jobs as a result of the sale of SCMC to Mission Health Systems are not being offered the self-insurance plan, and instead are being offered an Adventist health care plan requiring them to visit an Adventist facility for medical treatment and doctor’s visits.

Employees were informed that, as a faith-based organization, the hospital does not have to provide COBRA insurance, Nobriga said.

“As a faith-based organization, they should be more sensitive to people and take care of their employees,” Nobriga said. “It’s very contradictory.”

The Adventist health benefits offered to laid-off workers provide continued coverage for three months, but with services to be obtained at an Adventist facility, Nobriga said. After the three months is over, former employees must pay $400 a month for insurance and continue to use the Adventist facility.

Laguna Beach labor attorney Diana Cimino, who was asked to look into the issue by some of the laid-off workers, said Adventist may be on rocky ground in denying COBRA because the employee handbook she has seen lists COBRA among the benefits.