If someone has Cobra and then gets Medicare coverage, it states that they may loose their Cobra benefits, I would like to know what are the general rules for this to happen. Thank you.

When an employee loses health coverage because of they now qualify for Medicare, that is considered a qualifying event for the employee's covered spouse and/or dependents.

But because Medicare also has a Secondary Payer Rule prohibiting an employer's group health plan from taking Medicare entitlement into account or terminating coverage because of Medicare eligibility, that will create an initial COBRA triggering event.

If a qualified beneficiary's Medicare entitlement occurs after he elects COBRA, which is what you are talking about, the plan may terminate his COBRA coverage on the date of the Medicare entitlement.

If the employee is entitled to Medicare before COBRA, then loses coverage due to termination or reduction of hours, the employee's covered spouse or dependents may have COBRA for 36 months from the date of the employee's Medicare entitlement. The employee is restricted to 18 months on COBRA.

A friend got royally screwered because he refused the cobra, since he had medicare part a and part b, then they came back and said he had other insurance available to him, so they did not want to pay claims under a & b. Medicare is a scam!

Be careful, the insurance rules (who pays and who doesn't) get very tricky with cobra and medicare. A friend declined cobra and then had his medicare part a & b canceled retroactively incuring thousands in medical bills.