Newly Unemployed Face Tripling of Insurance Costs with loss of Cobra (Washington Independent)

[chill_wind]

With Loss of COBRA Subsidy, Newly Unemployed Face Tripling of Insurance Costs
Stimulus Help for Health Insurance Program Ended May 31, Leaving Many Families Without Affordable Options for Health Care

By Annie Lowrey 8/24/10 4:45 AM

For the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled.

In the first week of July, Andie Davis’ husband, who worked in manufacturing, lost his job, as hundreds of thousands of Michiganders have since the onset of the recession. Soon after, he started collecting unemployment insurance benefits that might last the family of four as long as 99 weeks. Davis hopes that the benefits will keep the family afloat — the mortgage paid, school lunches made, the electricity on — without forcing her to tap into the family’s savings.

But to keep the family financially stable while both she and her husband look for work, she has decided to forgo health insurance. The Davis family looked at how much COBRA would cost them, thinking the government would help pay for it. Had her husband lost his job just six weeks earlier, Washington would have footed about two-thirds of the premium bill. But since Davis’ husband lost his job after May 31, the young couple is on their own.

The change has gone little-noticed, both by the press and by the laid-off persons impacted by it. But a popular stimulus provision, the federal subsidy of COBRA benefits, expired for newly unemployed workers as of the first day of June. That means, for the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled.

the rest: http://washingtonindependent.com/95520/with-loss-of-cobra-subsidy-newly-unemployed-face-tripling-of-insurance-costs

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[CurtEastPoint]

2. Yep, can attest to that 15 mos @ $215/mo, last 3 at $617, now nothing.

I have been turned down by Aetna and Humana. Flat. No go.

Cigna (Cobra) would convert me to an individual plan for... ta da! $1792/month.

WTF?

I will have to be uninsured for six months before I can get on Georgia's 'uninsurable' plan, and that will be nearly $700/month.

This system is totally fucked, as am I!

[chill_wind]

5. $1800/month. Unbelievable! :-(

We're really feeling it in our household, too (rates jacked way up since the new year). WTF??!! IS RIGHT.

[SheilaT]

7. If you actually had that much

money ($1792) each month to pay for insurance, I expect you'd be infinitely better off to buy an extremely high deductible (on the order of $10,000) plan, and bank all the rest of the money to cover what ever you'd need to. You'd have saved the $10,000 deductible amount in less than a year.

Oh, and there actually would be an advantage of buying such a plan, since the insurance company would actually have negotiated lower fees for whatever services you would be paying for out of pocket: Doctor visits, x-rays, test of various kinds. You wouldn't be stuck paying the unconscionably huge amounts that real uninsured people are charged.

I learned this doing a recent stint in outpatient registration in a hospital.

[CurtEastPoint]

10. Thanks, Sheila. I got that.

However, I am being turned down for insurance as an individual, so I don't have that luxury, unfortunately. I wish!

[SheilaT]

11. I have to say that one nice thing

about working for the hospital is that the health benefits are quite good. At least at my hospital. And get this: no increase in premiums for the past two years, and no change in benefits.

[MissMarple]

3. Cobra affordability has always been a joke, a very sad joke.

[napi21]

8. Absolutely! About 10 years ago my hubby changed jobs & his new ins. wasn't to take effect

for 90 days, so we checked into COBRA. HA! What a joke. For ONLY HIM and not me, the cost was $835/mo. If he took the family plan (kids are gone and on their own) it would have been $1,446/mo. We couldn't afford that but hubby HAD to tak the COBRA indivdual plan because he had heart bypass surgery 10 years prior to changing jobs but the ins. co's still considered that a pre-existing cond. I managed to find an individual plan with BCBS for $157/mo.

Remembering that when we did that it was BEFORE all the rapid increases in ins. premiums, I can't even imagine how much it must be NOW!

[ananda]

4. Boy, that's ugly!

nt

[chill_wind]

6. We'll fix it LATER!

eom

[awoke_in_2003]

12. +1000. nt

[KansDem]

9. Just curious, but does the gender of the reporter now reflect the gender of the third-person used?

I wonder if this is the prevailing practice in journalism.

[area51]

13. Thank goodness we had health care reform.

Oh wait. We didn't.

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated for-profit insurance that's too expensive, doesn't pay for enough, denies claims, and makes people go bankrupt. Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."