New Year’s Eve is my last day of employment for a while. I’m being laid off. One piece of good news is the the Federal government will pick up 65% of the cost of my Cobra health insurance for 15 months, if necessary. It’s a new program started last year as emergency relief for laid off workers.
It’s not universal. If you have a spouse or domestic partner who can include you under their employer’s policy, you’re not eligible. Or if you’re old enough for Medicare, you’re not eligible. Luckily, I AM eligible.
The cost of keeping my health insurance under Cobra will be under $120 per month. Woo hoo!
you are lucky, i was laid off aug. 22nd 2008 and just missed fed help by a handful of days. now i’m down to my last few months of cobra and wondering what next.
Um… not to burst your bubble, but it’s only for 9 months. Once I pay Jan. I only have Feb. then it reverts to the full COBRA amount which will cause me to have to drop it and I will uninsured. Unless, of course, I manage to get a job or hit the lottery…
And, oh yeah, in this economy 9 months goes really quickly. Just saying…
My COBRA ran out just about the time they passed the bill helping to pay for it. It saved me money on an emergency room visit when I was in NYC, but ended before the MRI on my head in May. The hospital knocked 60% of the price off of that one, so I will have it paid off in another year and a half or so.
But hey, thank to all you folks that are paying more for your insurance, to help the hospital make up the loss they took from treating me.
I’ve been watching for this and reading all the online stuff I could find but still missed it. I figured they were too busy with the Healthcare thing to pay attention to this. That’s why I come to the Dope. Smart people here!!!
Whew… It’s a huge relief to me. I’m really struggling and would not be able to pay COBRA at its regular price and I would not be covered. What did happen though is that my former company raised the rates for 2010 so I’m paying a little more starting with the Jan. 2010 payment. It would have been worse but I took a higher deductible on medical and dropped vision.
How I hate this recession! But how I love the people like the ones here who help each other.
Boyo Jim, I’ll take any snippets of good news at this point.
I found that they also extended FAC (Federal Additional Compensation), the $25/week additional benefit to those collecting unemployment. It doesn’t seem that it will help you, unfortunately, at this point as you would have had to file your claim prior to December 20, 2009.
This is the link from the NJ website. FAC info is at the bottom of the page. I couldn’t find updated info on the Fed site.
So as long as you start before the end of February, you still get the money. Of course, New Jersey may be different. Some states (Indiana) certainly suck at taking care of their unemployed workers.
Edit: Reading that page from the New Jersey site, it seems to say, as long as you filed a regular claim (not an extended claim) before December 20, you can get the FAC through July. (I would be jealous of the length there, but my benefits won’t make it long anyway. :p)
So the government can come up with money to help you guys with this? But what about those of us with no health insurance and can’t get anything concerning health insurance from the government = I mean great your getting it - but what about the rest of us?
I feel bad for you, and if I don’t find a job in the reasonably near future I will be in the same position.
The only suggestion I have is to write your representaves in Congress and push them to support universal health care. The while point of it is to control costs and extend coverage to those who can’t get or can’t afford coverage now.
Pretty much what Jim said. I don’t have any insurance anymore, and with 4 pre-existing conditions, one of which the doctors haven’t even been able to diagnose, I am SOL unless the current health care reform bill gets passed. It is not good enough, and not even close to my personal preferences for health care in this country (I have been a fan of the Canadian system for almost 30 years now.) but it is better than nothing and will at least remove the pre-existing condition block.
I have been very local to both senators and my representative, but it is pretty much wasted breath in my case. Sherrod Brown (D) agrees with me on the Canadian system, Voinovich is apparently looking ahead to his financial career after his current term ends and he enters the lobbying sector, and Robert Latta is doing his best to pander to the Tea Partiers in the district (Of which there is more than a few.)