My work covers health insurance for me and my spouse, but recently we had a baby and I was told by HR that our baby would not be covered by insurance. I was told that covering the baby would be too costly for the company (it's a small company) and that I would need to take out an insurance policy on my own. Had we already had a baby when I started working there, all 3 of us would have been covered, but because the baby came after I started working there, they don't want to take on the added cost.
Now, I don't make very much as it is (am actually underpaid for my position), and the idea of paying a monthly health insurance premium is daunting financially (but we would gladly do it, of course, for the sake of our baby). From a purely financial perspective, I'd need a bump in income just to cover the cost of the insurance premium, but if HR isn't going to cover our baby on its insurance policy because of the extra cost, it doesn't seem likely I would be given a raise even if I asked.
My first question is, Is this normal for a company to cover health insurance of spouse but not subsequent dependents born after the hire date? And specific to my situation, do I have a bargaining chip to ask for a raise to help offset the cost of the premium?