Can an employer require employees to pay a part of health insurance
premiums for insurance that is mandatory for employees with no other
health insurance & still deduct the employer's share of the premiums &
run the employee's portion through a cafeteria plan?

If your employer pays part or all of your health insurance premium, it
can require you to participate in the health plan. There is no law
that prohibits an employer from doing so.

This requirement may seem unfair, but consider other conditions
employers routinely dictate to their employees, including job-related
travel, adherence to dress codes, and participation in
employer-sponsored workshops or classes.

Employers may demand employee participation in the company's health
plan because in some states the insurer can impose "minimum
participation" requirements. The insurer may stipulate, for example,
that 85 percent of the company's employees must belong to the health
plan in order for the insurer to cover the group. This is to make
certain that the plan participants represent a mix of healthy and
unhealthy employees.

If only the "sick" employees who needed to take advantage of the
covered benefits joined the plan, the high number of resulting claims
would cause the cost of the plan to soar and threaten it with
financial collapse, a phenomenon known as "adverse selection."

For more information, call your regional office of the Pension and
Welfare Benefits (PWB) Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.
(The contact information is contained in the pull-down menu featured
in Know your COBRA rights.) You also may call the national PWB
Division of Technical Assistance and Inquiries at (202) 219-8776.