Watched a bagger have an epiphany yesterday

[Coyote_Bandit]

34. Great story but

most of the Obamacare legislation has not yet become effective. Even if it were, the only portion that would sem to help him would be the prohibition against denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. There's no guarantee that the coverage made available to him would be affordable - even with financial subsidies.

The employer in question has already breached the contractual obligation to pay premiums and provide health insurance benefits to its employees. If they wil do that then they will most certaintly violate any statutory requirement that they make such payments. The employer is most likely having significant financial problems.

Even if he can find an attorney to epresent him and even if he gets a judgment against the company he may not be able to collect it. And he will have trouble finding an attorney to take the case. They generally chose to decline representation in cases where the ability to collect judgements (and fees and expenses) is speculative at best. Particularly when that case is a time consuming and highly detailed matters like contract and insurance disputes.

I'm not aware of any way to purchase retroactive health coverage.

The most important question may be when those $55,000 in unpaid medical expenses were incurred - and whether or not the health care providers involved contacted the insurance carrier to verify coverage for those procedures and documented the same. If they did that then the health insurance company may still be responsiblefor those costs because they represented coverage was in place. Or the failure to get pre-approval from the insurance company may be used in negotiations (perhaps even litigation) against the health care provider.

Having been in a similar position when an employer failed to make premium payments I think this bagger will find that he is shit out of luck.