Birthday Rule Questions

Hello,

Being a major researcher has lead me down a rabbit hole and I’m hoping to at least confirm my understanding and possibly learn if here are any other options here.

Situation: I am pregnant with our first child and due this January. My husband and I both have individual health insurance through our employers and would prefer to keep it that way. My plan is better, so if we could choose, we would want to keep my husband on his own individual plan and put my daughter as a dependent on my plan when she is born.

But my understanding is there is an arbitrary “birthday rule” which states that if both parents of a newborn have individual insurance, the child has to be covered under the parent whose birthday falls first in the calendar year. So since my husband was born in July and I was born in October, according to this we are forced to put her on my husband’s plan if we both maintain our plans individually.

The only way I can find around this is to put all three of us on a family plan with my employer, which will cost us thousands more each year than if my husband stayed on his own plan.

My insurance company originally told me this was not the case, and we could choose whichever plan our daughter should be on. But after more reading I called to clarify and this time they are confirming that if we both have insurance, she’d have to be under his. They also said this applies to all children with married parents, not just newborns.

So now for my questions: 1. Am I understanding this right? 2. Are there any legal ways around this to let us as parents choose the insurance we want for our daughter? In 2021 there was a law proposed to give parents 60 days to choose after birth, but it doesn’t look like it passed. 3. Does the birthday rule really apply to all dependent children? Originally I thought we might just need to do a family plan for this year but then could put my husband on his own again after that and leave my daughter only on mine.

Thanks for any insight.

submitted by /u/Traditional-Bid4380
[comments]