NFL Players Looking for Better Health Care

The long awaited NFL lock-out is upon up and players are toughing it out without health insurance.  Many players chose to get coverage through COBRA while negotiations are under way, but there are players taking a risk with no insurance at this time.  This is unfortunately considering one of the main factors the players are fighting for is a significant improvement in health care post-football and a health care reimbursement account.
According to the article “The NFL Labor Situation is Bad, but Resolution Closer Than it Appears” by Peter King on SportsIllustrated.cnn.com, the NFL situation is in the hands of the lawyers and there’s even a possibility games are lost this year while they battle out NFL benefits and contracts.  This could take months, or it could take weeks.  It’s hard to tell at this point but progress is being made.
One of the major negotiations is for a change in post-football health care.  As of now, vested NFL players with 4 years of service or more can retire and receive 5 years of post-career health care free of charge.  NFL are proposing significant improvements in this benefit.  They are requesting vested players receive lifetime health care after the 5 years are over, just by paying a yearly fee, much like COBRA.  This would ensure pre-existing conditions wouldn’t affect their ability to get quality, affordable individual health insurance in retirement.  Also, the NFL would allow players to pay for future health care costs in a health care reimbursement account, to be used after their NFL careers end.  These are wise requests from the NFL players considering the future of major medical insurance quotes and health care major medical insurance quotes seems to be up in the air.  Time will tell if they end up getting what they want.