COBRA Subsidy Extension Exclusion Will Cause Real Problems For Jobless
By James Fox on July 26, 2010, 8:45 amCongress voted to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. The move met with much criticism and the demands from Republican that the extension of benefits be paid for with spending cuts were not met. Even though the extension passed, the federal subsidy that allows people between jobs to keep their health insurance was not extended with it. A person who has not reached the original extension can still pay 65% of his health insurance premiums to keep any healthcare coverage he might have had with his former employer.
Problems From Failure To Continue Coverage
Critics believe that the failure to provide extended COBRA coverage will result in a deepening of the current crisis that is perceived to exist in American Healthcare. If an accident or some illness occurs after the coverage runs out, an individual who had insurance under the benefit program may not be able to afford the cost of medical treatment. While emergency rooms are required by law to treat people, people who favored the extension believed that failure to extend benefits may place more burdens on hospital emergency rooms in big cities and border areas that are already overcrowded with people who do not have any form of health coverage.
Why Not Extending COBRA Benefits Might Work
Unemployment was enacted to serve as a safety net for people who are between jobs. The intent was to let people keep an income until they found work elsewhere. The current financial crisis has caused many people to give up hope and stop looking until the economy improves. If a health benefit is required for family reasons or for individual reasons, failing to extend the benefits may cause many people currently receiving unemployment to start hitting the pavement and sending out resumes again. If nothing else, the failure to extend benefits will free up extra money from unemployment checks that currently gets spent on premiums.
Related posts:
- Unemployment Extension Checks: The Latest On COBRA Insurance Subsidy
- COBRA Health Ins: What It Now Means To The Unemployed & Jobless
- Unemployment Extension And COBRA Health Insurance: Latest Summary
- COBRA Extension Excluded In Unemployment Leaves 2M More Uninsured
- Will Cobra Extension Give Relief To The Health Of Unemployed Americans?
INTERESTING TO SAY THE LEAST:
COBRA does not seem to raise question among the Populous actually making statement for itself and Government. Very few of the Populous had the benefit, for the actual numbers of Employmental Benefits are Few and Non-Existant.
Being on unemployment and needing to have health insurance is still going to be a struggle if the cobra is extended. I will still be struggling to make the cobra payment and all my other bills on unemployment. I don’t feel this makes people stop looking for jobs it just gives a little help for people who need health insurance. I am torn do I pay my house or my insurance because I can not afford both and I have to have medical insurance I have a lung problem.
what are they thinking….. I have been looking for jobs from day one when 18 months ago I among other of my piers had the misfortune to loose our jobs. I love my profession & the lifestyle I had become used to from the pay I used to get. Getting the little money from unemployment provides me little help, but my savings is quickly draining. And since I am single, I now have NO health insurance…. I cannot believe that people actually think that I was not sending my resume before!! I like millions like me, are not enjoying this forced break in our life. It is ridiculous that hard working ethical people are undergoing a crisis as big as natural disasters etc.. yet, no one is coming to their rescue.
I get exactly $1200 in unemployment and I pay 476.50 in Cobra. So for a mom/teacher with 2 children and one on the way this is impossible to live off of. Really it saddens me to see how poorly people are treated in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The GOP are not concerned with these people, because they get life time benefits from serving in Congress. Teachers however are not that fortunate. When they get laid off they lose their benefits.
I’d like to see these big wigs try to live on unemployment (especially in FLA). They think we don’t want jobs, that we’re just sitting home laughing!!!! There are NO JOBS You dopes. You make more un unemployment than the darn jobs are willing to pay.
Mr. Fox-have you lost touch with reality. You posit that not having the money to buy health insurance will free up more unemployment funds for other things. Apparently, you have a job with health insurance. Just one trip to the emergency might cost you $5,000 to $10,000 of debt. The only reason Congress failed to pass Cobra is spelled E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N in November. So, Fox, get a grip and look at the real world—it is not a pretty picture.
If they don’t renew the Cobra subsidy we will have to choose between our home and the $800 premium.
Basically we will become either homeless should we choose to pay the insurance or I will becime DISABLED and unable to continue looking for work because I need those meds to function.
It’s so hard on a marriage and on one’s self respect. Who ARE these monsters runnng our country who can approve $30 billion for the war in Afghanistan but cannot relieve the pain of the common family?
I will lose my Cobra subsidy end of August. 3 kids and a spouse, whose profession is construction and mine is new home sales. Things are looking very bleak. I’m SO disappointed in our government.
I have worked for 35 years paid my taxes. Half the money I get on unemployment goes to pay cobra, I have put put out 400 applications. We tend to help everyone else in the world but not our own people.I guess I am spoiled , we will see who I vote this fall.
I was laid off on June 18, 2010 and the COBRA cutoff was May 31,2010. I am a single mother of two. Since my layoff I have had no less than 3 interviews a day and still have not been offered a job. Here in LA unemployement is $247 weekly ….$988 Monthly and if I elect to keep my cobra it will cost me $490 for me alone. My kids are on medicaid and I called to see if I can get medicaid to be eligible you cnat make more than $174 MONTHLY!!! I have diabetes and need my health ins. but without the extension I will have to let it go. This is very sad.
Because they are not extending the cobra subsidy, I will not be able to afford cobra @ $468 a month. I am a type I diabetic, my body makes no insulin, therefore I need it to live. I can’t affort the cost of insulin or my pump supplies without insurance. I am having to cut back on what I use just to survive. I was just recently layed off and only receive $1060 a month in unemployment and most of that is used to make my mortgage payment. I checked into individual insurance plans with BCBS, but they don’t cover pre-existing conditions..I have worked for 31 years with only one 4 month break in employment.I think the government needs to stop worrying about other countries so much until they take care of their own people.
I really believe the COBRA premium subsidy program should be extended. What bothers me is that the people who haven’t had the burden of getting laid off or have experienced the issues some of us are having don’t care about any of these problems because they have never experienced it themselves. I had been working for T-Mobile for 8 years and just got laid off July 22nd; I missed the Cobra subsidy by less than 2 months. I had gotten Neurological Lyme disease which has affected my nerves throughout the left side of my body causing a lot of pain and other complications. I also just got into a motorcycle accident OCT 2009 when a lady blew a stop sign cutting me off as I was passing through the intersection. I broke my Leg, and both of my arms, and also tore 3 ligaments in one knee and the other knee is missing a big chunk of cartilage between the leg bones… this gets very painful. I have gotten a couple surgeries already, but still need a few more and I have 2 surgeries scheduled in the next 3 months. I was able to get disability coverage through my employer’s insurance company since I just had knee surgery 3 weeks ago, about 10 days before they laid me off, but my disability is half the income I was getting, and now I have to pay for COBRA which is $450 a month. It is a MUST that I have insurance because I need these surgeries and they cannot wait, and also I am on a lot of medication that would cost $5500 without insurance. I am NOT able to work since I am on disability and will be for most likely 6 months until I can get all my surgeries done. So now, my insurance premium is about 25-30% of my income and all my medical bills combined are about half of my monthly income, there is no way I can possibly afford this. If I was getting the income that I was while I was working, it wouldn’t be a problem, but that is not the case. I can pay my medical expenses, but there is not enough money left to pay for my shelter and food, what am I suppose to do?!?!?!
I do NOT think that it is fair at all that people that were laid off in May are eligible for this premium subsidy, and the people laid off in June or July are not!! They started this program because people cannot possibly make ends meet with such little income and such high health insurance premiums, but what makes anything different today?? Never in my life have I had to use any state/federally funded programs such as unemployment, state assistance, ect… but now I am in a very bad situation in reguards to health and finance. HOW is it fair that I have been paying taxes that pay programs like this for my whole life and then when it comes time that I need it, it’s not there!! All these other people have been laid off just like I have, but what’s the difference from them or from me? I did not choose to get laid off or choose when I got laid off, but I’m being penalized because I didn’t get laid off sooner. T-Mobile tried to hold on to their employees as long as they could, but now they just laid off several hundred people, possible thousands, and they are going to be laying off more on Aug 18th, but none of these people will be eligible for Cobra subsidy.
I don’t think it’s fair, and Cobra needs to be extended!! There are many other people out there in the same situation that do not voice their concerns, but those people are having the same problems that many of us are having including myself
Unfortunately I was terminated too late to get this and they did not extend it. I will be supporting my wife and myself on my unemployment. Since rent is $1k here in chicago I am not sure if unemployment will cover rent and cobra, much less the little things like food and utilities. I have some savings, but it will not last long. I guess they want us to just go and do it to decrease the surplus population.
Oh. FYI my layoff is after working ten years for a university.
I have not missed a day of work in 19 years and just lost my job, because they did not extend the cobra assitance my insurance is $478.
The government is not looking out for the people that have always worked. The middle class is going under. If you are poor you can get assistance , if you are rich you do not need assistance. The middle class has to go through all of their savings when looking for a job. Is this Fair?
My wife was just laid off and we will lose our health care, no 65% COBRA subsidy and I have a prior condition. So COBRA is $1,475/mo. and I have no option to opt into a more basic plan under COBRA. What realy stinks is that even though the 65% subsidy is gone I have to foot the bill through taxes to others that were laid off a few month earlier. Hey my wife gets $49/week in unemployment so guess what I am dropping off of health care altogether no choice for me financially. I guess under Obama’s health care reform to add insult to injury I will be breaking the law and have to pay a penelty
I paid large premiums when working because of the cost of healthcare. Now that I am recently unemployed and am not eligible for the 65% SUBSIDY I am forced to make the choice to forgo health insurance to save my home. And at an age when my husband and I are vulnerable to health issues. Shame on congress and Obama…..I was a supporter….shame on me!
I would play that penelty when hell froze over .. Let them put you in jail then you would eat better have great health care, you can even have school free so you will know how to sue them when you get out lol Great country we live in yes but our gov. has lost its ever loving mind!!! and Dennis please dont blame your self for supporting that lying spineless muppet, the other ones wouldnt have done any better I dont believe
I just opened the invoice from my ex-company to pay my COBRA payment, it was $1309.68 instead of the usual $458.19. I guess my 15 months is up, to bad my families medical issues are not! There is no way I can afford it, finding a job with benefits these days are tough. Hope I don’t have another heart attack! Please extend the subsidy today!
I think that all LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS should be entitled to the SAME HEALTHCARE PLAN AND RETIREMENT PLAN THAT OUR SO-CALLED GOVERNMENT HAS. They are supposed to work for us aren’t they? We could always cancel their insurance, their retirement plan, and TERMINATE THEIR EMPLOYMENT and see how they like it. Let’s see if they can live in the real world like the rest of us. They wouldn’t last a day.
We need to write congress to reinstate the subsidy as the recession has not ended as they initially thought it would. There is still a great need for the subsidy – not having it is an extreme hardship on everyone! Put it back in place so we can better weather this awful economy!
I won’t pay his penalty they can take me to jail!!! But wait then I’ll have a place to live and food to eat, clothes to wear, cable to watch, OH AND FREE HEALTH CARE!! FRANKLY they can kiss my ass!!! How is it the ones that play by the rules go with out, while the ones that break them get it all!!!!! Pisses me off!!! Every time I think about it!!!
My brother lost his job his wife has stage 4 breast/bone cancer has to have insurance. They are having to get a divorce so that she can get free health care!!!! IT is the only way for her to get coverage!!! Now what kind of Gov. do we have that rewards single people… Married people can go to hell!!!