COBRA Subsidy Extension: The Reasons Why Congress Did Not Include It
By William Finch on July 27, 2010, 8:22 am Posted in Finance NewsThe president spent much of his political capital and good will with his own party pushing through the healthcare reform bill. A bill, which unsurprisingly, most Americans opposed. The failure of the congress and the administration to extend COBRA benefits comes as something of a surprise to those who believed that the President wants to make sure that all Americans have access to health care. People on both sides are asking why neither congress nor the president chose to extend this benefit along with the extension of unemployment.
Why The Benefit Was Not Extended
Although the president may pointing the finger of blame at the Republican for failing to extend COBRA coverage, the GOP stated that they might as well use the funds already allocated to economic recovery. The reasons for doing so, they pointed out, is that Obama’s stimulus packages have either failed to work or the money is not being spent. Taking money already allocated for use elsewhere to extend the unemployment health insurance subsidy would not hurt the recovery that the White House claims is occurring, even if economic figures do not support the claim.
Failure to Compromise
Both Republicans and Democrats wanted to see the benefits extended. The disagreement came from how to do it. Democrats favored borrowing more money and putting the nation further into debt, while Republicans opposed borrowing funds from foreign sources. Compromise has long been an important part of the American political process, and the unemployed worker who needs health insurance may suffer as a result of the failure. The options for him are to either go without insurance or to pay the higher premiums from the company. The political process did not quite fail, but ideological differences kept both sides of the debate from reaching a solution. The stimulus packages of Obama and Bush have failed to work so far. Allocating the money to a new source may help those affected by the recession.
Related posts:
- Tier V Unemployment Extension: COBRA Subsidy Could Be Paid For
- Unemployment And Cobra – Republican Solutions to Health Care
- Tier V Unemployment Extension Report:Who Is Saying What
- Midterm Election 2010: Democrats Already Looking for Excuses
- Unemployment And Cobra – What Republicans Are Proposing
I can’t believe they’re not extending the Cobra subsidy. How are we expected to pay for our healthcare w/out a job. I’m concerned will my husband & I be able to afford to pay our mortgage. If we don’t get the proper help then more Americans will loose their homes & other valuables. We is the help for the middle class hard working citizens of the US. Stop helping other countries & start repairing our country. I’m getting tired of these Politicians wasting our money on decisions that does not help the American people but more for their own gain. Enough is enough. Now is the time we need help..
This week 2 of our employees will be laid off. The cobra medical will be $1190./month. Without the stimulus, they will most likely not be able to provide medical for their families. I feel that this money is well spent because we know exactly where it is going, unlike some of the other money that is handed out. Help these families….extend this stimulus!
Americans needed this subsidy to cobra. There are many people who had insurance for along time, when they lost their jobs people hung on to whatever hope we had. What do you do with people that has had coverage now with serious ailments. Insurance premiums for those individuals are out of reach and if it you can attain any at all coverage it is unaffordable and poor coverage. The heads of this nation want to be the first to help foreign country’s with their catastrophies, what bigger one is there than the people of the USA being without jobs losing their homes losing healthcare. We should come first. Cant you see we are reaching out for a lifeline, and noone is throwing out a rope. If “we the people of The USA” fall- the Usa will fall! We need to stick together and try to forge ahead,we seem to be taking one step forward and a hundred back. Cant you hear our cries!
The excuse that they wanted to do it but could not decide how is a very sad excuse for not extending COBRA subsidy. It proves once again neither the Dems or Repubs really care about the physical or mental health of Americans. This additional expense will create real suffering that neither party can understand or they would have found a way to extend the COBRA subsidy. All should hang their heads in shame. Vote all out just for this flimsy excuse.
Danny in Valdosta, GA
I lost my job on June 1, 2010. The last day to qualify for the subsidy is May 31, 2010. I work in a school, and I had to work the last day of post planning on June 1, because May 31 was a Federal Holiday, Memorial Day. Otherwise I would have worked on May 31, and that would have been my termination day. Does anyone know if the same reason would apply here as does April 15, tax day when it falls on a Sunday? You have Monday April 16th to file with no penalty. It might be a shot to try. If I could appeal and win, there are more of us out there in the same boat with being let go on June 1.
My husband passed away suddenly last year. Three weeks later I got laid off from my job, I think because I had been on my husbands insurance and then had to go on my companies insurance which would make my salary larger (all other employees were on their spouses insurance). I haven’t been able to find a job and now will loose the subsidy. I am older and cannot afford to pay full price, nor do I want to lose everything if something major happened to me healthwise. I recently had to have a biopsy and without insurance it would have cost me $7000.00. Luckily I’m OK. I agree HELP US the taxpaying Americans.
please help with cobra subsidy
If Obama believed health coverage was so important for the American people, why didn’t he push for the COBRA Extension? By definition, the ONLY people using COBRA are people who lost their jobs. But the vast majority (I bet) do not qualify for the health coverage that Obama pushed through (though they may soon). But now, because of the economy, people who WERE paying for health insurance through their jobs rely on COBRA because we can’t find jobs. So basically the health insurance “fix” is more of a “switch.” Obama’s “fix” is good for some…at the expense of others who used to have insurance, but now that they’ve run out of money (while Wall Street keeps on truckin!) they’re standing at the back of the line. At this point, Mr. President, don’t count on my vote next go-round.
Why is COBRA so expensive? How are unemployed people supposed to pay for healthcare with unemployment checks that are a quarter of what they made? The government should take care of the American people first before anyone else. Healthcare should be free for the unemployed not over $1,600 for a family per month. PUSH THROUGH THE COBRA SUBSIDY INDEFINITELY UNTIL THIS COUNTRY IS BACK ON ITS FEET!!! Congress nor the President have to worry about where their next meal will come from or worry about how their children will be cared for.
It’s called HIGH RISK POOLS (part of health reform) and better individual insurance policies (Part of health reform).
Both go into effect this year and both are less expensive than COBRA.
Read a newspaper
For those of you who lost your jobs after May 31, 2010 and are not eligible for the COBRA subsidy or who have exhausted your COBRA benefits altogether, see cobrareform.weebly.com for alternatives.
Obama is a failure as a president, and that is the singular reason why COBRA was not extended.
1. He has focused on everything BUT putting people back to work in the private sector, even though this is the worst unemployment in decades. His inaction would be tantamount to FDR going to the movies on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, or President Bush going to play golf after hearing that the World Trade Center was attacked. He is AWOL on the jobless situation.
2. As was mentioned by the blog writer, he spent all of his political capital getting health insurance reform passed. He has virtually none left, considering Americans didn’t want it in the first place, and his popularity ratings continue to drop to devastating numbers. He simply has no more “pull” left.
3. The stimulus money allocated to “stimulate” the economy has done little except to prop up state governments. Nearly one-half of the $3 billion dollars remains unspent, and could be used to fund the health care of the newly unemployed. However, the president and Congress prefer to borrow money from China and send our country into deeper debt rather than use the stimulus money. Misguided priorities.
If President Obama were to put all his resources into getting the economy moving again — meaning growing the private sector, not government — getting people back to work and decreasing our national debt, he could enact a turnaround that could make him a great president.
President Bush missed an opportunity to become a great president by taking his eye off of Osama bin Laden and focusing on Iraq, a blunder that will have negative consequences on the U.S. for decades.
Likewise, President Obama is missing his chance to save the U.S., and instead is focusing his efforts on his ideologies instead of the immediate concerns of the American people.
Much has been said about the possibility that the president might not have been born an American citizen. It is a silly argument, and at this point irrelevant.
But what is more important is that the president simply doesn’t have American ideals. That is far more troubling.
Barack Obama spent a good portion of his early youth in Indonesia. At that time, the country existed primarily on U.S. aid. The aid helped the country to prosper, and today our country and Indonesia have a good relationship.
Nonetheless, Obama saw the U.S. as a source of aid, and not as a source of opportunity. And I believe that was the basis for his current belief system: the U.S. exists to provide for others at the expense of those who produce.
And everything that he is doing right now leads to that goal, of making private business weaker, making the working class more needy, and creating a system where the government is seen more as a caretaker than a driver of capitalism and simply a “traffic cop” to protect the initiative of those it is meant to serve.
Obama truly wants a “big brother” state, and unless Republicans can stop him in the coming elections, the U.S. is headed along the same path as many bankrupt and near-explosive — and socialistic — European nations.
Hey Joe reading and understanding are two different things. First off you have to be without insurance for six months to qualify. Second the so called risk pool insurance is not cheaper in most cases especially if you have pre existing condition’s and guess what insurance companies will ding you if you have the Dr more than once and if you have not made any visits or if your are taking medications. Be part of the solution don’t knock people any lower than they already are. Insurance companies make huge profits as well as do brokers. How do I know this Ive spent the last 25 years working for the Devil.
Our family will lose my husband’s company insurance in September when he is out of a job. We have been paying premiums for over 35 years and using medical insurance mainly for annual checkups and 2 baby deliveries. About 5 years ago I started getting heart problems that are due to a congenital condition. They are being controlled successfully with medications with doctor visits 3-4 a year. The rest of the family is still healthy, thank goodness. When we tried to apply for private insurance, I got turned down for coverage. Without insurance, my one heart medicine alone costs more than 150% of our monthly family food budget!
WAKE UP people. If you would only get off your “I got mine, to hell with everybody else” mentality, and think about the morality and practicality of the private insurance system, you have to admit that it stinks. IT IS IN BUSINESS TO MAKE MONEY on the backs of sick people. They pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars, pay for a huge, ineffective bureaucracy that is no better than any government-run outfit. At least if you’re not satisfied with an administration, they can be voted out of office every 4 years. The big private insurance companies can increase your premiums at will, can drag out your claim dispute for months on end, gobble up smaller companies so that there’s less and less market competition. The right’s assertion that market competition solves every problem is a crock! How can any thoughtful person think that market competition works when people’s health and lives are at stake. How can anyone not get offended that these CEOs and their minions make millions of dollars, spend many millions more on advertising trying to convince you they have your well-being at heart when the business model is based on raking in money from healthy people and increasing premiums or outright denying coverage to sick people?
Our family is struggling with the fact that my husband wants to keep working but can’t find a job. We will scrape enough money to buy catastrophic insurance for the family except for me. I now have to wait 6 months before being eligible for the high-risk pool, at which point we will have to pay a lot more than under a company-sponsored plan. Unsubsidized COBRA will also be expensive if we’re eligible for it at all.
The current patchwork of private and public systems has a built-in wasteful inefficiency by its very nature. A single payer system is the way to go.
I demand congress to extend the subsidy for Cobra I just lost my job and cannot afford the full payment!!!!
I lost my job in June and I have a rare lung problem. My family is not able to make the payments to cobra and I am going to have to go without insurance which means I won’t be able to afford the medicane or the oxgyen I am on 24/7 and my health will get worse and I won’t be able to find a job because I will be to sick. So I guess I will just wait to die is pretty much what the house is telling me.
Just a little reminder to the people that are behind not extending the COBRA subsidy, we are Americans and believe in helping all of mankind. Our unemployed need the subsidy to continue to have faith and patriotism in this country. My husband has lost several jobs due to layoffs this past year and we have used all of our retirement to keep paying our bills and COBRA is now draining the last of our bank accounts. the necxt thing to go is the house and cars and then we will be homeless. What then? I guess we will have to file for welfare and that is the saddest thing for an American to have to do considering we are the SuperPower. I can only say Yah right to that!
I would be happy if they made Cobra subsidy even half of what it is, not the 65%. I am a single mom with a special needs kid and am currently paying over $500 a month now, just for myself for insurance.
I can get cheaper private insurance but that covers no pre-existing condition and the deductable is too high, so I am stuck paying this in order to keep myself healthy to be able to raise my child.
How can Obama push everyone having health care and just blowing off the Cobra subsidy that should coincide with unemployment benefits. Come on, someone give us a break, would you?
I was laid off a month ago, AFTER the COBRA subsidy ended (5/31/10). My health insurance costs are unaffordable on unemployment, therefore I will likely drop coverage soon.
I am paying full COBRA in the hope that Congress will extend the deadline.
What makes the government believe that those of us laid off in June are going to find jobs faster than those folks who have been searching without luck for for 2 years?
COBRA subsidy should be valid until the former employee finds a new job or an alternative health care insurance.
Not 15-months or 24 moths. The employee has the 30 -25% the rest should be part of the Corporate Community and Social responsibility. Talking about the Goodwill, what happened to the goodwill for former employees.
This Cobra subsidy is a disgrace. Great idea and a necessity, but to end it as of May 31, what about all of us who got laid off after that??? Why shouldn’t we get the benefit of affordable health insurance. It’s bad enough to not have a job, but to leave your family without health insurance is ubsurd! My husband got laid off end of June, so missed cut off of subsidy, I have health issues and so do my kids…now what??????? Who is going to help us???? And to pay for the Cobra in the hopes that the subsidy will continue is crazy, who could afford it? And if I don’t do the Cobra, there is no chance of me getting the subsidy if it does pass. So where does it leave us????????
Someone has to do something and quick, there are too many families who are uninsured right now and it is a crime.
The COBRA subsidy needs to be continued to help those people that are unemployed and uninsured. The cost of health insurance has shot up the past few years to make it unaffordable to the average family. During this difficult time in our economy with unemployment hovering at the 10% level, there is no relief in sight. Congress needs to step up and pass a COBRA subsidy extension, at least for 6 months to get the unemployed over the hump until the job market opens up. Do the right thing Congress (Republicans) and vote yes. The country is behind you on this.
The COBRA subsidy helped not just those who are currently unemployed, but also those who lost their jobs and are now in situations which do not provide health insurance coverage. I lost my job in May, 2009. Since then, I have been an independent contractor. Fortunately, my COBRA subsidy reduced my family premium from over $1200 per month to approximately $450. My subsidy will be expiring at the end of September and I am freaking out because I am trying to obtain affordable health insurance coverage for my family without breaking the bank. What are people supposed to do until 2014? My twin boys have asthma medicine that I have no idea how I am going to pay for! It is simply unconscionable that the Republicans are opposed to extending the COBRA subsidy on the grounds that it inflates the deficit when they were the ones who took the country from a surplus to deficit spending on a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. What hypocrites! The money should be used to help all those workers who need coverage but are unable to afford it. The 15 month subsidy is insufficient because most people who are laid off take more than 15 months to find a new job. Chances are, the new job will be at a lower pay than the old job and w/o benefits. The subsidy should be extended until such time as the worker finds a job with similar coverage or qualifies for the Obama plan. I really think that we should organize & have a facebook page similiar to those who organized to get an extension of unemployment benefits. However, I don’t know how to to do that! It would be great if someone who is computer savy could do that.
I am a 64 year old woman and have been raising a grandchild, without child support, for 16 years, to wit, I am not a greedy so and so. My point is, due to my aging memory, I lost my job on June 18, just 18 days from the Cobra safety net. My policy costs me $1039 because I worked for a small business. But it doesn’t really cost me that,….because I cannot afford it. I emailed my senator, got no response except to get on his mailing list. No shock to me, he’s rich and couldn’t possibly know how I feel….which is helpless. I sure wish my boss would have get me go by May 31st! But no, she had to keep me til June 18th. Thanks a lot! Congress please help me.
I have been on the phone non-stop for three days trying to get some sort of coverage for myself, my husband is retired and on medicare,
premiums are ridiculous for the coverage. Please, please, extend the subsidy at least 6 months. This segment of the public needs HELP too!!!! Do something, you say you are so interested in healthcare, PROVE IT!!
I think this stinks. What are the unemployed to do about health insurance. COBRA insurance is very expensive. Unemployment keeps getting extended and some people are not even looking for jobs as long as they keep getting money. Would it hurt to extend until the end of the year? use your heads people!!!!!
I am a 55 year old woman and I have no idea what I am going to do when my reduced cobra ends ? I can’t even afford to have taxes taken out of my UE ? There is no way I can’t pay the full cobra. I have a condition called graves disease that does require constant blood work and changes in medication and stress really affects my levels !!! I am doing my best not to let this get to me . Even if I start work in next month … I won’t be eligible for health coverage and that is if they even offer it ?? This is scary … I have never been unemployed so long ? I got laid off June 2009 !
Maybe everyone should move here to Massachusetts where health care is mandatory. If you can’t afford it, they give to you. Of course, it takes a long time to find a doctor that will take it, and even longer to get an appointment to see the doctor…for that quick five minutes. Obama based his healthcare bill on Massachusetts….we are screwed, and the country is screwed. Everyone that has private insurance in Massachusetts is paying more…except of course the politicians and unions.
In a government of the people, by the people, and for the people…what happened? The unemployed, 10% of our country, needs help. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by this economy. These aren’t criminals or illegals who drain on the economy. These are good people who worked all their lives and lost their livelihood. Unemployment doesn’t pay the bills most of the time no matter how much you try to cut. The subsidy was a God send to people without a job. How can our government turn its back on its tax paying citizens who are just trying to survive?
Can someone (media) give some sort of an update on the cobra issue. I am part of 5 people laid off last Friday and we will all be going on the unemployment line tomorrow. Is there any chance that it will be extended?? Sucks to be us.
Typical partisan malarkey! Nero’s fiddling and Rome’s burning. It’s high time what’s good for the country takes precedence over what’s good for the party. Call, email, write, pester your representative until this subsidy is extended!
I think that the media should help get the politicians to move on this issue. It seems when other countries need the help they can’t wait to send our money.We need help and we need it now! I will not vote for anyone who turns their backs on the American people. This should have been a no brainer.
Forget the subsidies; open the existing VA hospitals to the public. The VA system is funded, in place (although it needs a freshening up) and can easily be adapted to deal with the needs of the public.
Forget the subsidies; open the existing VA hospitals to the public. The VA system is funded; it’s in place (although it needs a freshening up) and can easily be adapted to deal with the needs of the public.
Spend the COBRA money on improving the VA system and understand that private sector profits (insurance companies, hospitals and doctors) far exceed the so called cost of government waste.
In a few days my cobra will end. I have been paying 1024.00 per mo. Even if it was extended I cannot afford it. My husband is on social security. I am ashamed of our country that helps other countries but to blazes with helping there own!!!!!! I say @#$% to those who refused to help. Every dog has his or her day!!!!
You are absolutely right Donna my cobra benefits run out at the end of the month as a member of the workforce for over 40 years i have never seen anything like this in my lifetime and everyone goes on like business as usual all the jobs that have gone to mexico & china and lord knows where else are not coming back i have been out of work for over a year now what has happened to my country ? we have been sold out its that simple and all i ever wanted was to work hard to provide a simple decent life for myself and my family and they wont even let us do that anymore , i feel both parties are to blame no one listens to the people that this government was established for it only listens to big business & big money while the little guy foots the bill and carries the weight on our shoulders
I lost my job in October 2010 after 30 years. Until now I have never been on unemployment or needed help from federal or state programs. I elected Cobra in order to maintain insurance coverage until I find another job. The first two months premiums were extremely high and now effective January 1st they will go up by an additional 43%. I think it’s a disgrace that the administration has failed the hard working people of this country by not extending the cobra subsidy. I have every intention of finding work again and will continue as a contributing, tax paying citizen of this country and the very least the government can do is to provide assistance to those of us who simply can not afford the astronomical cost of health care while we are involuntarily unemployed!!