off2bed and Rightfield would have these people go without health insurance

[Le Jacquelope]

Can you imagine how bad off these people would be if the Government wasn't there to help them?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/79636.html

Expiring insurance subsidy imperils laid-off Americans

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Just before Don Hall and his family left town for Thanksgiving, the laid-off manufacturing supervisor from Castalia, Ohio, wrote a $763.81 check to his health insurance company for his December payment.

He'd paid $237 in November, but the big increase wasn't due to rising health costs or a catastrophic illness — and it wasn't an isolated incident.

Hall, 56, is among an estimated 7 million unemployed Americans who get a federal subsidy to help them buy health insurance under legislation known as the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.

For workers who are laid off or downsized between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009, the COBRA subsidy pays 65 percent of their job-based health insurance premiums for nine months.

That subsidy, however, expires Monday for Hall and untold thousands of others who began receiving it in March, when it first became available as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Unless Congress moves swiftly to extend the benefit, millions of other jobless Americans will experience the same sticker shock when they exhaust their subsidies and must pay full health insurance premiums, instead of just 35 percent.

For many, the cost of coverage will triple, forcing cash-strapped unemployed workers to scramble for cheaper private coverage, go uninsured or suck it up like Hall and pay the higher rates.

With the subsidy, job-based coverage averages $398 per month for families and $144 for individuals, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Without it, premiums average $1,137 for a family and $410 for an individual.

Hall and his wife are lucky. Their monthly premiums increased only $526 without the subsidy. "But that's still a $500 hit on my monthly budget," he said.

He's hoping to offset the higher rate with lower mortgage payments through a loan modification, but it's unclear whether he'll get the adjustment.

"We've gone over our expenses, and we don't know what else to cut back on," Hall said. "Thank God we've got a little money in the bank, but we really have to be diligent in our spending."

Hall has been unable to find work since he was laid off from an auto parts manufacturer in October 2008, even though he has a master's degree in business. He's getting $422 a week in unemployment benefits, and cutting health insurance to save money isn't an option.

Hall has high blood pressure, and he and his wife have knee and weight problems, "which always adds to continual concerns about our health," he said.

In general, COBRA allows certain workers who lose their jobs — unless they were fired for gross misconduct — to continue their health insurance with their former employers for up to 18 months. Before the subsidy was offered, only about 9 percent of people who were eligible for coverage under COBRA took advantage of it because it was so expensive.

An August analysis by Hewitt Associates found that COBRA enrollment had doubled since the subsidy became available for more than 14 million eligible workers. The study of 200 large companies found that enrollment rates jumped from 19 percent from September 2008 to February 2009 to 38 percent from March to June 2009.

Industries with large job losses showed the greatest increase. Enrollment among industrial manufacturing workers went from 7 percent to 59 percent, while enrollment tripled among construction, leisure and retail workers.

It remains unclear when or whether Congress will address the subsidy expiration with specific legislation or as part of a major jobs bill.

Earlier this month, Sen. AI Franken, D-Minn., spoke on the Senate floor of a 57-year-old constituent from Lakeville named "Gregory" who was laid off from his printing job in March and now depends heavily on his COBRA subsidy.

The benefit allows Gregory to pay $350 per month to continue his job-based coverage for his wife, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, and himself.

When their subsidy ends Monday, however, the couple's premiums will rise to $940. Gregory can't get less expensive private insurance because of his wife's pre-existing condition.

"In today's dismal economy, who has $940 each month to spend on health insurance, especially if you don't have a job?" Franken said. " . . . Now is not the time to put another burden on struggling families."

Franken and other Democratic senators wrote a letter this week urging party leaders to act on the COBRA Subsidy Extension and Enhancement Act of 2009 (S. 2730). The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, would increase the subsidy from 65 percent to 75 percent, extend it from nine to 15 months and push the initial expiration date to next June.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., sponsored a similar measure in the House of Representatives.

Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation is preparing a cost estimate on the Senate legislation. Earlier this year, the committee estimated that the current subsidy would cost nearly $25 billion and would cover about 7 million people this year.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO

Because of the uncertainty about whether Congress will extend the COBRA subsidy, Phil Lebherz, the executive director of the Foundation for Health Coverage Education, urges jobless workers not to drop their COBRA coverage until they've been approved for another plan.

"That's the worst thing you can do," Lebherz said.

Even if you have to pay the higher premiums for a few months, it's better to do so, he said, because once you miss a COBRA payment for a month, you're dropped from the plan and can't rejoin it.

Because unemployment benefits can disqualify many jobless workers from Medicaid coverage, those who can't pay the full COBRA premium should consider short-term private plans and high-deductible plans, which often have lower premiums. The foundation offers a national uninsured help line at 800-234-1317.

In addition, see if your children are eligible for the Children's Health Insurance Program. These income-based programs are designed for families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for private coverage.

For laid-off workers who have pre-existing conditions that make them unable to find private coverage, most states offer high-risk pools that supplement workers' insurance premiums.

 

[RightField]

First, the democrat approach to the economy is to institutionalize higher unemployment because their policies are anti-business and make it more difficult for the US to compete in the world market....under Republican approach, chances are he wouldn't be unemployed in the first place.

In the second place, I support the effort to give people a helping hand when they need it. I just don't believe that "a helping hand in time of need" necessitates a complete government takeover of our healthcare program, particularly when other government programs like medicare are already having horrible financial problems and the Republicans have advocated straight-forward and clear market-based policies that would work a lot better than the democrat plans.

I don't think that our government can be all things to all people and still adequately do the few things it is supposed to do under the constitution. We cannot create a "dependent" society and still grow and thrive....we need to continue to grow and thrive to continue to improve our standard of living...the "invisible" effort that has given us plentiful food, comfortable homes, and enough leisure and wealth to pursuit our dreams. The democrat approach will make us all poorer.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Enough of your jibber jabber. What would you have society do for a guy who's trying but unable to get a job, and faces $900 a month for health insurance?

I would do what most of Europe does. How bad is their health care system, dude?

How come no countries out there want to move away from single payer Government-run health insurance? Can anyone answer that?

 

[RightField]

Enough of your jibber jabber. What would you have society do for a guy who's trying but unable to get a job, and faces $900 a month for health insurance?

I'd vote the democrats out of office as fast as humanly possible to return to a growth oriented set of political policies that will bring back jobs (though it will take some time to recover from this democrat disaster).

I'd get the unemployed fellow to change his insurance policy as quickly as possible and take out a catastrophic only medical policy. That does two things, first it preserves cash and second, it still protects him and his family in case of emergency. By the way, these "catastrophic only" policies will not be available in the new government controlled medical industry.

In your article, it mentions that there are already a bunch of programs out there to help and it recommends following some...if that's the case, why do we need to sink another $900Billion in deficit spending to fund a complete government takeover?

Second, I'd start thinking about relocating if he's in an area that has high unemployment and find a place where there are more plentiful jobs in his area of expertise. If his wife isnt' working, it probably would be good for her to start looking for a job too, this recession seems to be hardest hitting in traditional "male" jobs such as construction and there seems to be some jobs out there in other fields.

 

[RightField]

John Stossel:

President Obama insists that health care "reform" not "add a dime" to the budget deficit, which daily grows to ever more frightening levels. So the House-passed bill and the one the Senate now deliberates both claim to cost less than $900 billion. Somehow "$900 billion over 10 years" has been decreed to be a magical figure that will not increase the deficit.

It's amazing how precise government gets when estimating the cost of 10 years of subsidized medical care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill was scored not at $850 billion, but $849 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her bill would cost $871 billion.

How do they do that?

The key to magic is misdirection, fooling the audience into looking in the wrong direction.

I happily suspend disbelief when a magician says he'll saw a woman in half. That's entertainment. But when Harry Reid says he'll give 30 million additional people health coverage while cutting the deficit, improving health care and reducing its cost, it's not entertaining. It's incredible.

The politicians have a hat full of tricks to make their schemes look cheaper than they are. The new revenues will pour in during Year One, but health care spending won't begin until Year Three or Four. To this the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner asks, "Wouldn't it be great if you could count a whole month's income, but only two weeks' expenditures in your household budget?"

To be deficit-reducers, the health care bills depend on a $200 billion cut in Medicare. Current law requires cuts in payments to doctors, but let's get real: Those cuts will never happen. The idea that Congress will "save $200 billion" by reducing payments for groups as influential as doctors and retirees is laughable. Since 2003, Congress has suspended those "required" cuts each year.

Our pandering congressmen rarely cut. They just spend. Even as the deficit grows, they vomit up our money onto new pet "green" projects, bailouts for irresponsible industries, gifts for special interests, and guarantees to everyone.

Originally, this year's suspension, "the doc fix," was included in the health care bills, but when it clearly pushed the cost of "reform" over Obama's limit and threatened to hike the deficit, the politicians moved the "doc fix" to a separate bill and pretended it was unrelated to their health care work.

Megan McArdle of The Atlantic reports that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin asked the Congressional Budget Office what the total price would be if the "doc fix" and House health care overhaul were passed together. "The answer, according to the CBO, is that together they'd increase the deficit by $89 billion over 10 years." McArdle explains why the "doc fix" should be included: "They're passing a bill that increases the deficit by $200 billion in order to pass another bill that hopefully reduces it, but by substantially less than $200 billion. That means that passage of this bill is going to increase the deficit."

From the start, Obama has promised to pay for half the "reform" cost by cutting Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years. But, Tanner asks, "how likely is it that those cuts will take place? After all, this is an administration that will pay seniors $250 to make up for the fact that they didn't get a Social Security cost-of-living increase this year (because the cost of living didn't increase). And Congress is in the process of repealing a scheduled increase in Medicare premiums."

Older people vote in great numbers. AARP is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. Like the cut in doctor's pay, the other cuts will never happen.

I will chew on razor blades when Congress cuts Medicare to keep the deficit from growing.

Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.