COBRA and Dire Health Insurance Figures
Some new figures out on the surge in the number of Americans losing health insurance: 14,000 a day, according to new post at The Wonk Room . On one hand this is not surprising because the number moves up pretty much in tandem with the unemployment rate but it is surprising in another sense because COBRA law which provides for health insurance for up to 18 months after being laid off should have kept the uninsured from surging. COBRA, though, is impossibly expensive. You have to pick up your health insurance cost and what your employer was providing and this is clearly too much for most of the newly unemployed. Some good news: The stimulus package being signed today includes $87 billion in health care related spending and a big COBRA subsidy, at least for now.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
It's for 9 months though, and was pared back from about a year and a half with federal subsidies.
Also, it only applies to those who recently became unemployed since September 2008, not before that.
Oh, and if you're underemployed (in a temporary job with no healthcare benefits, and still on COBRA), you're still uneligible for the subsidy. Major loopholes that leave out a large number of people like me.
February 17, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since COBRA can cover spouses and children, will the subsidies cover them as well or is it just for person who held the job?
February 17, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not just put the unemployed on Medicaid? It would have to be cheaper.
February 17, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would've been, but that was stricken out in the name of bipartisanship.
February 17, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the problem with Medicaid. That's the program for the poor. And many, many providers do not take that coverage. So that would have left many middle class and higher than middle class folks finding out that the kind of medical coverage we give to the poor is "very poor." And that would have led to a citizen uprising! So instead, we are subsidizing the insurance companies that would have "gone without."
Personally, I think they should have just folded them into Medicare (the one for the elderly, that we should all be in).
February 17, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
My COBRA is exhausted in two months. I was lucky. I opted to depart company while still in Europe. Since medical costs are affordable due to socialized medicine, I only pay $275 a month. I'm negotiating new coverage with a european company that covers Americans in Europe at the moment. I suspect I will see that premium double. Unfortunately, it'll be in euro so the monthly premium will be a variable, not a constant, but still should be cheaper than US coverage.
February 17, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
it also doesn't include me because when I got laid
off I passed on Cobra because it as way to expensive.
The original stim package from the House included
covering those unemployed under Medicare. WHO or
WHOM took it out!!!!!
No one is talking about this
February 17, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but what about us "discouraged workers" who haven't been eligible for COBRA for several years!
We've been picking up the tab for our own insurance on the private market, and it's beyond impossibly expensive.
February 17, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does it bother anybody else that its named after a snake thats famous because it kills? Is there a message here?
February 17, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pretty shocking statistic about the loss of health coverage across the U.S. I work in health administration myself, and the number of new requests I've received thus far really do point to a marked increase in the number of uninsured patients. It'll be interesting to see what occurs in the coming months. The stimulus package is supposed to help people offset the high cost of COBRA coverage, but that's just one bullet that's not silver. Something tells me when we've seen the greatest drop in employment numbers since the Great Depression, a stimulus package for COBRA health insurance is not going to solve the issue! Perhaps it will be a simple Band-Aid, I presume?
March 2, 2009 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink