questions about COBRA I worked for a small business for 2.5 years. I recently resigned and put in my two weeks. I was told to clean out my desk and leave immediately. The business is in Michigan, USA and employs 7 people. I asked my former employer if I could do COBRA for my health insurance until my benefits kick in at my new job. He said he would look into it, he called me back today and said he would let me do it but I would have to pay him my premiums directly, not the insurance company and that I would have to stay 2 months ahead in payments. Am I eligible for COBRA from such a small company? Does it make sense that I would need to pay him and not the insurance company? If 1 and 2 are yes. Is he required to provide me any official documentation in regards to the full costs of my premiums if 1 and 2 are true, can he require I keep 2 months ahead in payments?
Employers with 20 or more full-time-equivalent employees are usually mandated to offer COBRA coverage. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insurance/11/intro-cobra-health-insurance.asp He is not required by law to offer it to you, but is probably trying to work with you. After employment, the individual is required to pay the entire premium, and at times it may be topped up with an extra 2% toward administrative charges. They can charge you administrative fees on top of what you would have paid. Being that he does not have to offer it to you by law, he can do what he wants.
The insurer can absolutely deny paying any claims if they discover that you misrepresented something in obtaining your policy, or you failed to notify them of relevant changes in accordance with the policy's terms. In fact, even changing the "garage" location within a state can affect your premium. You should call your insurer and provide them an honest and complete description of the regular use of the car. It is up to their underwriters whether they will continue to provide insurance for that use, and whether they will change your premium accordingly. Update regarding the question update: The insurer could not legally deny a claim for any insured damage prior to notice of cancellation, so long as there was no misrepresentation and you had paid your premiums. As to when an insurer can legally cancel a policy: This is first a contractual question, and their policy should include terms and conditions that address this. (E.g., they might reserve the right in the policy to cancel it for any reason at any time, in which case it's almost certainly legal.) Note that all policy terms must be approved by a state's insurance commission. I happen to remember that Massachusetts has some very unusual terms and restrictions for car insurance, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Massachusetts entity discovered that their policy on the out-of-state car was non-compliant and they had to cancel it. The great thing about the tight regulation of auto insurance is that if a claim on a policy is denied, or if a policy is improperly cancelled, then you can file a complaint with the state regulator, and those tend to get resolved quickly and in the insured's favor. Therefore, you should simply review your policy terms and the cancellation notice. If anything seems out-of-order you can call both the insurer and your state regulator.
Question: Do I need a EU passport or EU ID card to legally work in the EU (or establish that I have the right to work in the EU)? Or is a certificate of citizenship sufficient? Legally, your right to work is not contingent on this and there is no Europe-wide rule that makes holding any document mandatory. Importantly, if you do start working anyway, you are not committing a crime and cannot possibly be banned or forced to leave the country. You do have the right to work from the day you became an EU citizen and if any doubt arises down the line, you should be able to clear it up later. In practice, employers are sometimes supposed to check you are allowed to work (and for that would require some proof of your citizenship) but they don't necessarily need a passport or ID. What's typical on the other hand is that you have to provide an official proof of address (in the countries where you have to register your address with the authorities) and the local social security, insurance, or national tax number. Both of these will require dealing with the authorities and will be considerably more difficult, if not downright impossible, without a national ID card or passport (in fact it can even be difficult with a passport). I worked in multiple EU countries and I don't recall always having to present my ID to employers. I recall at least one instance (in Germany) where I could start working without one (it had just been stolen) and another one (in the Netherlands) where I started on the day after I arrived, without official address nor tax number (BSN). In both cases, I was expected to solve these issues within the first month and you risk a fine if you don't register within a week or two but it was neither illegal nor impossible to start working before all the formalities were completed. None of this means I would be completely comfortable about being months without a passport. But the main issue for you will be entering the country and what your employer's HR department is prepared to tolerate, not any sort of legal obligation to hold a passport to work. Note that in one of the cases I described above I went to the local consulate to get an emergency passport. It wouldn't have been possible back in my country of citizenship but there are some special procedures when you reside abroad. These rules change all the time and depend on your country of citizenship but that could be worth a try.
is it legally acceptable to state that 7.5 hours is the standard amount No. Because you are a contractor not employee, there is no "standard" to refer to. You are only entitled to what your contract provides for, that is £N per day no matter how much time you worked. That said, if there is no word "overtime" in the contract, you cannot use one to justify how much you charge. You can, though, charge for weekend days (unless the contract explicitly prohibits working on weekends). what should be done about going into the future with this work and asking for a revised contract? 1) Learn the lesson; 2) Make up your mind about what you want to be paid for: hours, days or output; 3) Discuss/negotiate contract terms with your clients.
Disclaimer: I am not familiar with US law, so this answer is from a general perspective. It should apply in most jurisdictions, though. Are there any laws or regulations which I can use to convince a hospital's billing department to talk to me, despite the fact that they have a clear policy otherwise? No, I don't think so. A company or organization is generally free to decide for themselves who will or will not communicate with you - I don't think there is any law giving you a right to choose. How would this even work? What if the people you ask to talk to are overworked, on vacation or just not qualified? However - you do have another, more important right: To be considered valid, a bill must provide credible evidence that the charges are justified. You cannot just ask someone to give you money, you must actually provide a reason why you are owed money. In this case, this means the hospital must send you a bill that you can understand and verify. To get this: First, stop bugging them over the phone. Once a point is reached where legal action seems likely (like in your case), any information you get is only really useful to you when in writing. So do everything in writing. It's fine to talk to them if it helps solve the problem - but insist on getting things in writing afterwards. The first thing you need to write is a formal letter that you refuse to accept the bill, because you cannot verify it. Outline in details what parts you cannot understand/verify, and ask for the information you need (such as what the codes mean). Once you have received a satisfatory explanation of the bill (which may take multiple letters), you go through it with a fine comb, and dispute any items that you think are unjustified. You may need the help of a lawyer to exercise these steps, but in principle you can probably do it on your own, too. Whether you get a lawyer is ultimately a trade-off (making a mistake may cost you money, but hiring a lawyer costs money, too). A first consultation with a lawyer is probably not too costly (ask first!), and may help you to decide whether you need more assistance.
The statement "you don't need to put it in writing" is not an instruction, and should not be interpreted as on in lieu of other evidence (e.g. the follow-up question "you don't want to get fired, do you?"). It is, at best, a recognition that your concerns have already been noted (and at worst, a ham-handed threat). In the context of an at-will non-union position, it is legal for a boss to directly demand "take it or leave it, no back-talk allowed". The reduction in salary can't go below the statutory minimum, or otherwise circumvent any laws, but assuming that the new salary is per se legal, they can demand that you accept it and not argue. If this were a government position, there is a potential (but not guaranteed) First Amendment issue.
In the absence of a contractual agreement saying otherwise, the lawsuit would probably just be subject to normal rules of tort liability. In that case, the contractor would probably lose his case unless he could prove that the one worker infected another through an act of negligence or could otherwise prove that the infected worker knew he was infected and posed a risk to others. In the basic negligence situation, the contractor would likely rely on the general duty we all have to avoid creating unreasonable risks of injury to third parties, and he would need to argue that Worker A somehow breached that duty. Coming to work knowing you're infected would almost certainly satisfy that standard, but it might be enough to simply show that Worker A was at a large gathering of unmasked people whose vaccination status was unknown. From there, he would also need to prove that breaching that duty caused him some injury, presumably by infecting Workers B through M, causing a work slowdown, causing missed deadlines, causing late fees, etc. The contractor might also pursue a claim for reckless, rather than negligent, conduct, if Worker A knew he was infected and came to work just the same. Or he might pursue an intentional tort claim if there was some reason to believe that Worker A was actually trying to get other people sick, as opposed to just ignoring the fact that such a risk existed. As I understand it, several states have also passed laws limiting liability for exposure to COVID in the workplace, so it's possible that none of these claims would be viable, no matter how strong the evidence.
If you were on your parents policy with the understanding you were a student in college, then yes, they can drop you and refuse to pay. You need to read the terms of the insurance very carefully, somewhere in there it says that the policy is only in effect while you are enrolled as a full time student. You (or your parents) broke this agreement, and the insurance company doesn't have any obligation to pay. Should I refuse to acknowledge the debt as mine? Can I claim it's the insurance company's debt? No, the debt is yours from the moment of service, the insurance company's job is to cover some of that expense on your behalf. It isn't the insurance company's debt, it is yours. Contact my old insurance company and try to get them to pay up? Unfortunately you will not be successful at this. You violated the terms of your insurance (not being enrolled in school), the company has no obligation to pay. Your parents may be owed some refund of money for any extra premiums they paid while you were not enrolled, but that would be the extent of the insurance company's obligation. Negotiate with the dentist office to reduce the bill and just pay it? This is probably the best route to go. Insurance companies often negotiate fixed prices for certain procedures that are different than what they would charge uninsured customers. You can ask your dentist if they have any kind of help for uninsured patients. Simply have them fix the charge so that it's accurate (it should be $700, not $1400, since I already paid half), and pay in full? If you already paid $700, and $700 was your insurance providers portion, then yes, the bill that the dentist sends to you should be $700, not $1400. Make sure though that the entire bill is $1400 though, not $2100 ($700 your portion, and $1400 insurance).