What COBRA Coverage Provides
The COBRA Continuation Coverage is identical to your coverage in the Plan before it terminated. COBRA Continuation Coverage provides for uninterrupted continuation during the period of such continuation. However, the MILA Trustees have decided to offer, as an alternative to continuation of your current coverage, continuation under an alternative lower costing benefit plan. This alternative is available only to Members who are working under the Master Contract and their covered dependents. For example, if you were covered as an active participant under the Premier Plan when coverage terminated, the standard continuation would be in the Premier Plan without any interruption. However, any Qualified Beneficiary could decide, instead, to elect coverage under the Basic or Core Plan because those Plans have a lower premium. If you were to choose such lower cost coverage, the new coverage would begin on the date you lost your Premier Plan coverage, it would have a new deductible and a new out-of-pocket maximum based upon your new benefit that would begin to accumulate on the day following the termination of your Premier benefit coverage. In other respects, it would be COBRA Continuation Coverage in the lower benefit and lower cost coverage subject to all COBRA rules for continuation. Also, once you elected the alternative coverage, you could not change your mind and switch back to the Premier Plan benefit.
If, during the period of COBRA Continuation Coverage, the Plan’s benefits change for active Members, the same changes will apply to COBRA participants. If, during a period of COBRA Continuation Coverage, a Qualified Beneficiary ceases to be an eligible dependent under the Plan, that Qualified Beneficiary may separately elect COBRA Continuation Coverage for himself/herself. However, the total of all periods of COBRA Continuation Coverage for any person, measured from the initial Qualifying Event, will be no longer than 36 months.
