Word: careful
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With the job outlook grim, unemployed workers received an unexpected boost this week as President Obama signed legislation authorizing a six-month extension of the COBRA health care subsidy program that was part of the economic stimulus bill passed in February. "That makes me pretty happy," says Don Hall, 56, who lives outside Sandusky, Ohio. A supervisor with an MBA at an automotive parts supplier to Ford Motor Company, Hall was laid off in October 2008. He recently sent a letter of hardship to Wells Fargo to try to save his house from foreclosure. His subsidized COBRA payment has been...
...millions of laid-off workers and their families, the federal COBRA subsidies have been a health-coverage lifeline," says Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a non-profit organization for health care consumers.(See the 5 things that the House and Senate have to iron out on Health Care...
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal subsidies pay 65% of the cost of COBRA premiums. Originally, the subsidy was to expire after nine months and unemployed families would have seen their health care premiums spike on average from $389 to $1,111 per month. This tripling of cost could have caused many families to drop their health care coverage just as Congress is on the cusp of passing the most far-reaching health care reform legislation in history. (See the Cheapskate blogger on COBRA...
Former Admiral, now Congressman, Joe Sestak, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told the House of Representatives, "Hardworking people who have suffered most from the mistakes of others should not have to decide between trying to meet an enormous expense or going without health care." With nearly 15 million Americans looking for work, Sestak said the health care bills being debated by Congress may eliminate the need for COBRA, but that those provisions, if included in the final bill that reaches President Obama's desk, may not take effect until...
...late Senator Edward Kennedy's major accomplishments in the health care field, COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986) enables discharged workers to stay on their employer's group health plan for up to 18 months. Unlike the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), COBRA does not require the employer to pay the cost of providing continuing coverage. Instead, it allows employees and their dependents to maintain coverage at their own expense by paying the full price of the premium plus an administration fee. The Joint Committee on Taxation, a non-partisan group focused on government finance, estimates...