Does My Employer Have To Provide Me With Health Insurance?

To date, there are no laws on the books that require your employer to offer you healthcare benefits. Many larger employers however, do offer health benefits as a way to attract and retain valued employees. Because they aren't required to offer you health insurance, each company making the offer decides on its own which of their employees will be eligible for health coverage, as long as it’s done fairly.

Most large companies only provide health insurance to their full-time employees. Of course, the number of hours you’ll need to work per week in order to qualify as full-time will vary from one employer to the next. In general, working between thirty and thirty-five hours per week qualifies as full time.

Even though employers aren’t legally required to offer you health insurance, once they have, they’re subject to an assortment of state and federal laws that regulate issues such as what kinds of benefits they’ll have to provide. For example, if your employer has more than twenty full-time employees they must also must be offered the portable coverage popularly known as COBRA.

Meanwhile another law, HIPAA, guarantees those employees with pre-existing medical conditions certain rights.