Will Help for COBRA Health Insurance Come to an End? in Health Insurance News
COBRA is the federal program that permits you to stay on your company’s health insurance plan after you lose your job. On the surface that sounds like a good thing, but COBRA has always been a mixed blessing – because while the program ensures that you can continue your coverage, you have to pay for the whole monthly premium yourself.
Once your employer’s share of paying for medical insurance is removed, people get a real clear picture of just how valuable their employer based affordable health insurance really was. According to the National Business Group on Health the average annual COBRA premium for a single individual with a PPO health insurance plan was over $5,000 in 2010, for family coverage the figure was over $15,000. That is a heavy duty chunk of change if you are not working.
As part of the original Stimulus Bill the Obama administration recognized this burden, and provided funds to give help to pay up to 65% of COBRA premiums for qualifying individuals and families
In December of 2009, Congress voted to continue the eligibility dates for the subsidies for another 15 months. When that program expired this past February, it was again extended, to the end of March 2010, and then once again to the First of June.
The original Bill to which the COBRA subsidy was attached also extended unemployment insurance and canceled a 21 percent cut that was made in Medicare payouts to doctors.
That bill also makes other changes to taxes and spending, however it did not include the COBRA subsidy when the House passed it at the end of May.
The COBRA subsidy also was conspicuously left out of the Senate version of the bill, which was being debated on the floor up until the current recess.
In order to give more out of work Americans access to affordable health insurance, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) has offered the COBRA subsidy as a separate amendment, but it’s chances of passing are not very good. Said Casey to the Senate body. “Americans who lose their coverage through job loss cannot be expected to purchase expensive health care plans while they’re unemployed. We ought to give them some measure of peace of mind so they can concentrate on finding a job instead of worrying about whether they or someone in their family, a loved one, is going to get the medical treatment that they deserve.”
