Probationary workers who were refired this month from the Commerce Department say their health insurance is being terminated earlier than they expected.

The workers had expected their health insurance to run into May.

Instead, they received notices this week that the department is backdating their termination to an earlier date, meaning the health insurance ran out last week.

Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which advocates on behalf of federal workers, said he heard from “dozens” of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) staffers who received such notices. 

“At a time when the President is publicly touting how investors have recently made millions, even billions, of dollars off recent swings in the stock market, it is cruel and inhumane for the Commerce Department to short-change fired NOAA employees on their health insurance,” Whitehouse said in an email. 

Spokespeople for the Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is unclear how widely the notices went out or how many workers are affected.

The Commerce Department houses a wide variety of agencies including NOAA, the Census Bureau, the International Trade Administration, the Economic Development Administration, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Two ex-Commerce employees who spoke to The Hill about the notices worked for different offices in the department.

Probationary workers at the department have essentially gone through two firings because of legal battles over the actions of the Trump administration and Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk and DOGE initially moved to fire all probationary workers in February. Such workers have generally been at their positions for a year or less and are easier to dismiss.

But temporary court orders initially prevented the firings from moving forward, forcing the Commerce Department and other agencies to reinstate employees.

Those orders were later lifted, and the Commerce Department subsequently fired probationary workers for a second time.

The notices now being received, some of which were reviewed by The Hill, say Commerce will be backdating employees’ date of firing to their original termination in February rather than their refiring in April.

This means that the monthlong grace period during which they would have continued to receive health insurance post-termination has already ended. According to the website of the federal Office of Personnel Management, terminated employees are required to get a 31-day extension of their health coverage at no cost.

Previously, the employees told The Hill they believed they would have been insured until mid-May based on the date in which they were refired in April. 

Instead, they received a notice this week informing them that their coverage extension “ended April 8.”

The two employees who spoke with The Hill argued that the grace period should not have begun until April because while they were rehired to the agency they were still paying for health insurance out of their paychecks.

“This may be chump change for the billionaires running the government, but not having health insurance can be catastrophic for the working men and women of this country,” Whitehouse said.