Modified Tue, Dec 01, 2009 06:43 AM
A key lifeline
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close xThe federal health insurance program known as COBRA (it was part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is not the coverage of choice for those Americans who have it. For it means they have involuntarily lost their jobs, and to maintain insurance coverage for 18 months through their former employers, they pay the premiums under COBRA. The program has never been more important than it is in this Great Recession, when millions of people are out of work.
A federal subsidy to COBRA pays 65 percent of premium costs for nine months for workers laid off between Sept. 1, 2008 and this coming Dec. 31. That has been a literal lifesaver for many of those people, who otherwise would have a hard time affording COBRA coverage.
But that subsidy is expiring for many (it first became available in March), and absent intervention by Congress, hardship looms for families who depend upon COBRA to shield them from possible catastrophic medical expenses. Their costs will go up, perhaps multiplied by three, while their unemployment situation continues.
More protection
Congress should act quickly and not just continue the program, but consider expanding it, perhaps covering three-quarters of premiums and making the subsidy last longer. Many who are covered under COBRA, in addition to being burdened by the financial calamity of joblessness, have medical conditions that likely would eliminate them from health coverage if they tried to find it on their own.
The COBRA situation arises as the U.S. Senate begins debate, expected to be contentious, over a health care reform proposal. It is a good example of the gaps that exist in insurance coverage and the dire consequences those gaps can have for average citizens. Trying to get by without health insurance, a dilemma more people are facing, is similar to being stranded in the ocean on a sinking boat. Without a life preserver, chances for survival are grim.
For those millions whose coverage - coverage that goes to family members as well as individuals - is tied to a job, unemployment becomes a many-layered crisis. And trying to buy COBRA coverage without a supplement? Consider that the Kaiser Family Foundation reports job-based coverage with the COBRA subsidy averages $398 a month for families and $144 a month for individuals, and without the subsidy, those rates go to $1,137 and $410, respectively.
Family emergency
Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, cited one unemployed constituent whose premiums, without the subsidy, would rise to $940 a month. "In today's dismal economy," Franken said, "who has $940 each month to spend on health insurance, especially if you don't have a job?"
Members of Congress who don't understand that simple truth, that obvious emergency for families, shouldn't be on Capitol Hill.
The COBRA problem is illustrative of the immediate and long-term flaws in a health care system driven by profit-making and with insurance companies and drug companies protecting their healthy margins with big investments in politicians inclined to agree with them. Those senators and representatives who continue to speak of America's health care system as if it were an untouchable symbol of perfection (or are paying mere lip service to reform) ignore the life-changing problems that this seriously flawed system causes.
The debate over the Senate legislation will offer Americans a chance to see who gets it and who doesn't with regard to health care. For their own sakes, they need to pay close attention. The outcome of the health care reform debate could be, after all, a life and death issue for millions of people.
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