Working Spouse Fee

I work for a Fortune 100 company with great health insurance, my spouse’s employer has pretty good insurance but mines better so we’ve always paid the extra to have a family plan. Open enrollment is coming up and my company just announced you will need to certify whether your spouse has access to their own work coverage and if they do you’ll be charged an additional >$1000 annual fee (split monthly) in order to have them enrolled – this is on top of the extra cost of a non-individual plan, basically to keep you from comparing plans unless there is a gap greater than the fee. If they don’t have work coverage (whether because they are self employed, unemployed, part time/not eligible etc) the fee won’t apply.

I’ve never heard of such a thing – although I have seen the opposite where they pay you extra not to enroll in the health plan – is this common? I’m pretty disappointed in my company and curious if others have seen this recently or if it’s been common and I’m just lucky to have avoided until now.

submitted by /u/wyndmilltilter
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