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The rising unemployment rate is causing not just job loss but also the loss of valuable health insurance coverage for many people. In response, the federal government has enacted new legislation to help with COBRA coverage as well as state aid to families with children.
Changes to COBRA
COBRA stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1986. Under COBRA, if you worked for a company that had more than 20 employees, then you are able to continue on the group health insurance plan for as much as 18 months. The downside of COBRA is that it can be quite expensive. In most states, recipients report that COBRA payments account for more than 75% of their unemployment benefit. However, under the recently passed Economic Stimulus Package, you could be eligible for assistance with 65% of your COBRA premium.
To qualify for the program you must have lost your job between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009. Your income must be less than $125,000 for an individual and less than $250,000 a year for a family. If you did not take advantage of COBRA initially, you can still sign up for it. If you did sign up for COBRA coverage, you won't get any money back for the premiums you have already paid, but you will be eligible for assistance from the point after the law has taken effect. Under the new law you will pay 35% of the premium, and the government pays the other 65%. Your assistance could continue for as much as nine months.
State Children's Health Insurance Program
Another measure the federal government has taken recently to help people with health insurance coverage is to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program or SCHIP. The law will provide $32 billion to the program over the next five years and expand coverage to from 7 to 11 million children. SCHIP is designed to provide health care coverage for children up to age 19 and pregnant women, in families whose income is low, but not low enough to qualify for Medicaid. A portion of the funding will come from an increase in the tax on cigarettes.
Under SCHIP, the federal government provides the states with matching funds to provide health care for families with children. To qualify, families could earn only up to 200% of the poverty level. Under the new law, families can earn up to 300% of the poverty level and still qualify for SCHIP. Each state has set up their program differently, so programs can vary from state to state.
If you find yourself out of a job and out of health insurance, two recent measures by the federal government may provide some assistance. The first are changes to the COBRA program in which the government could pick up to 65% of the cost of your health insurance premium. The other is the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Either of these options could provide short-term assistance with health insurance coverage for the recently unemployed.
Health insurance costs have been on the rise for a very long time now. Health insurance plans are getting out of reach for many middle class families to afford. The biggest problem with this increase is that salaries have not risen nearly as fast. The only way most families can afford rates like this is for both parents to work. However this just causes more visits to the doctor's office, because most of the times the kids have to be put in day care.
If you have kids in day care or know someone that has kids in day care, then you know they are much more likely to get sick than kids that are not in day care. The reason kids get sick more often in day care is that they are around a bunch of kids that they can catch an illness from. Many people have tried to develop new ways to lower health insurance costs, but they have not worked very well so far. I believe that the only way that health insurance costs can be lowered is with the help of the federal government.
I think the largest problem with health insurance costs today is the higher insurance costs that hospitals must pay for malpractice insurance. The burden of these larger costs is then placed on the patients that visit the hospital. The malpractice insurance costs are high because of the many frivolous lawsuits that are filed every year in America.
I believe that the federal government needs to get involved to place limits on the amount of money that can be won in these lawsuits, because this will slow down people who might want to sue for no reason. In turn this will allow malpractice insurance costs to be lowered, and also allow health insurance costs to go down as well. I do not think that these things will happen on there own, so I believe the only way health insurance costs will become more reasonable is if the federal government gets involved.