Dear Joyce: Before accepting a job offer, how far can I go in a job interview asking about health insurance?

With the current crisis in health insurance, "USA Today" quotes a Kaiser Family Foundation survey showing that more than half of Americans had a problem with their health plan in the previous year. I feel we have a right to ask about the prospective employer's health insurance provider, plan name and a copy of the policy. During the hiring negotiations, is it worth asking for a copy of the policy and how the employer will support an employee who runs into difficulty in resolving health insurance problems or will this type of question open me up to a health-related hiring bias? -- M.M.

Dear M.M.: You've got that right. No matter how many laws are passed to protect your interests, American workers will not be impervious to health-related employment bias until payment for health insurance is completely separated from the workplace.

Cast in the framework of new economy employment, your question is fresh but its core is old: If I or my wife or kid has a costly illness, how do I give up my current health insurance to take a better job? Despite an individual's continuation-of-coverage protections when leaving a job that have been established by federal COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985), state COBRA laws, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and various court cases upholding the health-coverage rights of workers, one is really home free during a hiring negotiation.

Fran Quittel, founder of www.pre-IPOjobs.com, a San Francisco company specializing in recruiting tools for young companies, confirms your apprehension about bringing up health care during a job negotiation. "Even when you camouflage your intense interest by submerging health-coverage questions into a boatload of other concerns, asking for details hoists a very red flag, especially for start-ups." Quittel, also the respected career advisor for "ComputerWorld" magazine, adds that a start-up may obtain employees through a PEO, a professional employment organization. PEOs lease workers and provide employee benefits to clients. Still, there's no safety in numbers where your health insurance is concerned.

Even when your check comes from a PEO, if your start-up bellies up, you have no guarantee of continuation of benefits. "From my experience, I see the (health insurance) policy being canceled as soon as a company is under three employees and no COBRA is offered from that day on," says Linda A. Kellog, CEO of Start-Up Resources, a firm that has fast-tracked more than 60 start-ups.

Here are four simple things Quittel suggests you can do to protect yourself without raising the flags of suspicion:

• Casually ask for a brief clarification: "You said bennies include health insurance. Does that mean it's entirely employer paid or co-paid? How does that work?''
• Look for a larger company that may better be able to accommodate a few high-claim employees in its work force. Even then, avoid detailed discussions of pre-existing conditions. One man I interviewed said his hiring offer was withdrawn after an admission that his wife had cancer; the employer's concern was both the anticipated insurance cost and the expected distraction of a wife's illness.
• Try to handle your quest for information under the radar. Find a friend inside the company who will answer your questions privately.
• If you can determine the identify of the insurance-company provider, call the company and request a copy of the plan used with the employer for whom you would work. If challenged, truthfully say you are conducting pre-employment research.

The time has come to make career management immeasurably easier by disconnecting the flawed hook-up between employment and health insurance.

E-mail career questions for possible use in this column to Joyce Lain Kennedy at jlk@sunfeatures.com.

© 2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate