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Swelling ranks of US jobless yearn for health insurance

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:55:08 +0000

FORT WAYNE, Indiana (AFP) — For many among the growing ranks of unemployed workers in the United States, the scariest part of losing their job is losing their health insurance.
Even before the current economic crisis, 45 million Americans were uninsured. That number is expected to rise to 54 million by 2019 if changes aren’t made to the system, according to the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
One of the swelling ranks, Amy Newlin, has been getting by on her savings and unemployment benefits after she and her husband lost their jobs last fall.
But while they can cut back on dinners out, new clothes or other inessentials, the costs of treating her diabetes, high blood pressure and thyroid difficulties have risen dramatically.
“I need insulin strips to test my blood, and medicine for my high blood pressure,” Newlin told AFP.
“My insulin is 80 dollars a bottle without insurance and the strips are expensive, too. It’s not easy to keep up.”
The Indiana woman was one of dozens who attended a meeting Thursday for uninsured people to register for government-funded health care.
Health officials held the clinic in the basement of an elementary school to deal with a surging number of applicants as a flood of layoffs forced scores of area residents off their employer-provided plans and into the peril of being uninsured in America.
Newlin arrived prepared with a folder jammed with old pay stubs, her birth certificate and all the other necessary documents to ensure she would be signed up.
But even if she qualifies, it will be some time before she’s insured and any serious illness or accident could still bankrupt her family.
Health care has long been a contentious issue in American social and political life.
High costs, the exclusion of patients with pre-existing conditions and bureaucratic snafus plague the private system, which is unattainable for a growing number of Americans.
The federal government manages two health care systems: Medicaid — for the poor — and Medicare — for the elderly. They currently amount to 5 percent of America’s gross domestic product.
But the costs will more than double to 12 percent by 2050, under the Congressional Budget Office’s current estimates.
Indiana launched a plan at the start of 2008 to cover some — the working poor, single parents, the moderately disabled — who are not protected by Medicaid.
Residents aren’t eligible until they’ve gone six months uninsured, and there’s a small pay-in for participants, helping to hold down costs.
President Barack Obama made health care reform a central plank in his populist platform when he ran for the White House.
And the massive stimulus package he signed Tuesday included plans to help cover the cost of temporary coverage for scores of displaced workers and possibly extend Medicaid coverage to other uninsured Americans who would not normally be eligible.
Yet comprehensive reform has been hampered by the distraction and cost of the current economic crisis, along with the loss of Obama’s first pick for health secretary, Tom Daschle, who withdrew from consideration amid questions about his tax history.
Washington’s political wrangling is a far way from those gathered in the colorful basement cafeteria of Indiana’s Fairfield Elementary School.
Newlin, for one, doesn’t hold out much hope for the government to solve anything soon.
“I don’t even know if they know where half that money is going,” she said of the stimulus.
Jerome and Brenda Lewis, a couple in their mid-50s, have been without insurance since October when she lost her job — and their coverage.
They are hopeful Obama will bring change and are thankful for the work of people who organized the clinic, but turn to a greater power for balance in these unsteady times.
“Right now, by the grace of God, everything is all right for us. We keep praying that everything will be all right,” Jerome Lewis said.

Lost your employer health insurance? Consider these tips:

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:15:27 +0000

· If your spouse has a separate plan, act quickly to get on it.
· Ask about your COBRA rights. With some exceptions, laid-off workers can continue their coverage for 18 months by paying its full cost. (Congress is considering a temporary, 65 percent premium subsidy.)
· If COBRA coverage isn’t an affordable option, explore non-group plans. Make sure that any coverage meets the requirements to protect you against preexisting condition exclusions in the future. State rules vary.
· Check out public insurance programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP, and community clinics. If you’re not eligible now, you might be later. Local health and social services departments may be helpful resources.
· When paying out-of-pocket for care, try to negotiate lower charges with doctors and hospitals.
SOURCES: Interviews with consumer advocates, insurance experts

US Congress passes children health insurance bill

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:07:06 +0000

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress approved on
Wednesday a bill expanding a health insurance program for
children and raising tobacco taxes to pay for it, giving
President Barack Obama a big legislative victory a day after
his pick to lead a healthcare industry overhaul stepped aside.
The House of Representatives voted 290-135 for the $32.8
billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance
Program, or SCHIP, which was approved by the Senate last week.
Democratic leaders are rushing the bill to Obama, who plans
to sign it at a White House ceremony on Wednesday. Former
Republican President George W. Bush twice vetoed similar
legislation.
“Today, the objective of years of work will be
substantially advanced. With this vote, and with President
Obama’s immediate signature, this bill will at long last be
law,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
The signing ceremony should provide a lift for Obama a day
after he acknowledged mistakes in the handling of Tom Daschle’s
nomination as his point man to lead a broader overhaul of the
$2.3 trillion U.S. healthcare industry.
Daschle, a former Senate minority leader, withdrew his name
from consideration as secretary of health and human services
because of tax problems.
The SCHIP program aims to help working families who cannot
afford private health insurance but earn too much to qualify
for Medicaid healthcare coverage for the poor. The additional
money for the program will help states insure as many as 11
million children, compared with about 7.4 million currently
enrolled in the program.

Millions of kids provided with health insurance

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:26:15 +0000

Starting Wednesday, millions of American children can have the health care they need, thanks a the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama. This fulfills one of the promises he made on the campaign trail.
It’s called the S-CHIP program, designed to provide health insurance to low-income families. Even better news: The bill continues coverage for seven million children already receiving care under the legislation and adds coverage for an additional four million children in need.
digs deeper into how this new law will help our local community.
President Obama calls this a key step toward his promise of universal health care coverage, while pediatricians here in Nevada call it an investment in our future. The biggest challenge Dr. Blaze Gusic experiences when treating his patients is health care coverage.
“It becomes very difficult to do my job when I have to lift to the back page of their chart to try to find out what insurance they have.”
A pediatrician with St. Rose Pediatrics, Dr. Gusic and his partners average 200 patients per day, a majority of who don’t have the right coverage. President Barack Obama signed a bi-partisan bill into law Wednesday enabling states to cover more than four million uninsured children, while continuing coverage for seven million others.
“I refuse to accept that millions of our kids fail to reach their full potential because we fail to meet their basic needs,” said Obama.
The bill will increase tobacco taxes to offset the increase in spending, estimated at more than $32 billion over four-and-a-half years. 23,000 children are already covered in Nevada. There will now be an additional 37,000 children who will be eligible.
Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley voted for the passage of the bill.
“We need to take care of these children while they are growing up and…give them a family doctor that takes care of them while they are ill. And I think not only will children be healthier, but we are going to save a lot of tax payer dollars.”
Investing in our future is a plan Dr. Gusic believes in as well.
“I think if we invest in children at an early age and we take care of them and keep them healthy, we’re going to see a reduction in cost in older generations.”
The Children’s Health Insurance Program was created ten years ago. This signing re-authorizes the program through 2013. Forty Republicans voted for the bill and two Democrats voted against it. President George Bush vetoed the bill twice when he was in office.

Nev. may not benefit from health insurance aid

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:53:05 +0000

LAS VEGAS—Health officials and advocates say a federal bill to increase funding for children’s health insurance would have little effect in Nevada under the budget proposed by Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons.
The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that would spend $32 billion over the next four years on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
But advocates note that Gibbons’ proposed budget does not include matching funds needed to access the federal money. Gibbons’ budget caps the number of children who can enroll in the Nevada version of the program at 25,000.
Roughly 23,000 children are currently enrolled. An estimated 55,000 uninsured children are eligible for the health insurance assistance.

How the Stimulus Does, Doesn’t Expand Health Insurance

admin — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:19:57 +0000

The version of the economic stimulus bill that’s come out of the congressional conference committee has wins and losses for advocates of universal health care.
House Democrats in particular had tried to use the stimulus bill as a step toward universal coverage, pushing for expansions of laid-off workers’ access to Cobra coverage and Medicaid. Republicans had complained about some proposals, saying the Dems were using the stimulus bill to jump the gun with costly health-reform proposals that didn’t belong there.
Below are some highlights of what came out of conference committee. The House
, and the Senate is expected to vote later today.
for up to 18 months. But Cobra coverage
, since employees often have to pay 102% of the premium.
The bill provides for subsidies for 65% of laid-off workers’ premiums for Cobra for up to nine months, at an estimated cost of $24.7 billion.
That’s pretty much what the House had pushed for, except that it had wanted the subsidies to last a year instead of nine months. The Senate had called for 50% subsidies for a year.
Gone from the bill is a House proposal that would have lengthened the Cobra coverage for laid off workers who are 55 and older or had worked for their employer for 10 years or more. Under that proposal, those workers would have been able to stay on Cobra until they qualified for Medicare or got coverage through another employer’s plan.
regardless of their income or assets — an idea that Republicans had criticized. But the bill still has $87 billion in funding to help the states pay for their Medicaid programs.
For gobs of detail on how the Senate and House proposals melded into the compromise version, click
. Health care is toward the end of the document. A much briefer summary of the bill is
. The Kaiser Family Foundation also offers a
of health provisions.

Report: Michigan slides in health insurance coverage

admin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 14:47:38 +0000

Michigan, longtime home of some of the best health benefits in the nation, has fallen below the national average of companies offering health insurance, a new report to be released today finds.
The number of people without insurance also grew, particularly among those ages 35 to 64 and those without a college education, the report found. Black and Hispanic people are disproportionally affected, the report said.
The number of uninsured people increased as more employers cut costly benefits or workers were laid off and lost coverage.
The “Cover Michigan” report documents “a state under stress,” where health insurance coverage has deteriorated since 2000, said Marianne Udow-Phillips, director of the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation.
The Ann Arbor company, funded by the University of Michigan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to study health access and other issues in the state, found:
• 53.4% of workers had health insurance through their employers in 2006, compared with 55.8% nationwide. In 2000, 63.9% of Michigan workers had employer coverage, compared with 59.3% nationwide.
• 11.6% of Michiganders were uninsured in 2007, up from 10.5% in 2006. The number of uninsured children grew to 6.2% in 2007, up from 4.7% in 2006.
• African-American and Hispanic children and adults younger than 65 were overrepresented in 2006 among those without insurance. Nearly 24% of black Michiganders, who comprise 15.5% of the state’s population, were uninsured. And 6.6% of Hispanics, who are 3.9% of the state’s population, were uninsured.
• 85% of the uninsured in 2007 were from households where residents had a high school degree or less.
.

SCHIPing away at the need for health insurance

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:03:26 +0000

The White House said no and pressed on with its doomed effort to get a bigger bill. The Republicans won control of Congress in the fall. It wasn’t until 1997, thanks to the unlikely duo of Sens. Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, that a children’s health care program was finally passed.
One of the clearest signals President-elect Barack Obama has sent is his determination to learn from the Clinton years, and particularly from the former president’s failures on health care.
When Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick to be secretary of health and human services, returned to the Senate last week for his first round of confirmation hearings, he offered a long list of criticisms that others had directed at the original health care reform effort. This time, he said, would be different.
And this week, the House of Representatives is determined to prove Daschle right. It is scheduled to take up an extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), as the Kennedy-Hatch initiative is called, so that 10 million kids can get health insurance. Getting more children covered before Congress starts wrangling over the larger health care bill is good politics, and the right thing to do. Congress needs to act anyway, because the program expires March 31. It might as well act fast, and act generously.
The SCHIP bill is unfinished business from the Bush years, and Democrats have no better way to show, and quickly, how different their approach to government will be from the style and priorities that prevailed during the outgoing president’s term.
President Bush twice vetoed an extension of SCHIP. He opposed the additional $35 billion the Democrats wanted to spend to cover more children and also disliked the tobacco tax they proposed using to pay for it. There are many big things people hold against Bush, but this one has always stuck in my craw. If “compassionate conservatism” – remember that phrase? – means anything, surely it should mean helping more kids go to the doctor when they need to.
Some advocates of universal coverage have argued that an expansion of SCHIP should be delayed so that the issue of covering kids can be taken up as part of a larger health proposal. The worry is that passing the most popular part of reform now (is there a more sympathetic group to cover than children?) would make it easier to delay the broader effort.
These are good faith concerns, but Congress would be right to ignore them. The economic downturn has made the expansion of SCHIP all the more urgent.
It’s not just that sharp increases in unemployment add to the ranks of the uninsured. State governments are hurting, too, and they are responding to revenue shortfalls by shrinking health care programs.
According to Families USA, a group that pushes for fundamental health care reform, states have enacted budget cuts that will leave some 275,000 people without health coverage, including 260,000 children in California. By the end of this year, if further proposed cuts go through, the number losing health coverage nationwide could rise to more than 1 million, almost half of them children. Other states have reduced benefits to those they still insure.
All this makes the case for fiscal relief to the states in a stimulus bill more compelling. It also makes clear that universal health insurance coverage should be an urgent priority. But getting the children’s program done in the meantime could create momentum for the larger program and reduce the size of the problem that needs to be solved in a comprehensive bill – 10 million kids now, the rest later.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not made any commitments as to when he would take up children’s health care, though he has listed it as a priority. It would do the new president and members of the Democrats’ expanded congressional majority no harm to move expeditiously on a proposal that is simultaneously bipartisan – SCHIP has always enjoyed significant Republican support – and embodies Obama’s oft-stated commitment to “programs that work.” This one surely does.
How often did Obama promise to “turn the page,” implying that his presidency would be very different from President Bush’s while also taking lessons from President Bill Clinton’s shortcomings? Winning a quick health care victory for children would prove he’s determined to do both.
To comment, e-mail E.J. Dionne Jr. at
.

Health Insurance Options

admin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:14:11 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS – For many people, losing their job means losing their health insurance. They often find the cost of COBRA too expensive, so they take a gamble and go without — but it’s not the only option.
As part of the economic stimulus package that could reach the President as early as this week, Congress may devote tens of billions of dollars to subsidize health care insurance under COBRA.
When Cathy Benson Cook was laid off, she was offered COBRA by her company.
“At that time it was $375 a month to continue the medical, dental coverage that I had. And it was about to go up to $425 because I was about to have a significant birthday,” says Cook, who’s been out of steady work since fall 2007.
Most employers offer laid off workers the option to temporarily stay with the company’s health insurance plans — but they’d have to pay hundreds a month. Cook turned it down because she couldn’t afford it. Right now, she’s uncovered.
This week, Medica launched a new ad campaign aimed at people in Cook’s situation.
“We need to be advocates and really steer them to the right plan based on their needs,” says John Chomeau, of Medica Insurance. “We’re stepping into the gap to help them understand that they have other choices to consider.”
The health insurance company is offering unemployed Minnesotans resources like online tools and counselors to educate them about COBRA and other plans.

Job loss: Stimulus package includes health insurance subsidy

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:34:27 +0000

Americans who have lost their job since September 2008 and are paying to extend your company-sponsored health insurance under a law called COBRA,
confirm what you already know: The payments are killing you. In 41 states, according to a recent
, average COBRA payments amounted to more than three-quarters of those states’ average unemployment benefits.
But according to the fine print of the stimulus bill being hammered out between the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, help is on the way — for those who elected and are paying for health insurance under COBRA, and for many of those who took a look at the prospective price tag and said “no thanks.”
The two bills differ in how generously they will help the unemployed with their COBRA insurance payments. But the House and Senate bills contain COBRA subsidy packages, and the provision hasn’t been controversial. So it’s considered a good bet to be part of the final package adopted by Congress this week.
Here are the details, provided by human resources consultants of the New York-based
— If you were or are laid off between September 2008 and December 31, 2009, the stimulus bill provisions on COBRA subsidies would apply to you.
— The stimulus program would subsidize your COBRA payment (the House version would pay 65% of it, the Senate version would pay 50%) by giving the organization to which you pay your COBRA bill (typically your former employer) a tax credit. You would first have to pay your share of the monthly payment, then the stimulus package would kick in its subsidy payment (which is really a credit).
— If you lost your job within the designated period and did NOT elect to continue your health insurance under COBRA, your employer must offer you the opportunity to sign up for extension of COBRA coverage as soon as the bill becomes law. For those who maintained their insurance under COBRA, the federal subsidies are not retroactive — meaning, you won’t get any reimbursements for the cost of COBRA payments you’ve already made. Whether you sign on once the bill becomes law, or have stayed insured under COBRA continuously since you lost your job, the subsidy begins when the bill becomes law.
— Eligibility for the subsidy is a maximum of 12 months, and you lose eligibility for it once you become eligible for coverage under another group health plan — other than health flexible spending accounts. (COBRA benefits must be provided for 18 months by companies who lay off workers, and the bill paid by the laid-off worker — pre-subsidy — is the equivalent of 100% of the cost of coverage, plus 2%.)
— If you lose your job between the time the bill becomes law and 2010, and you haven’t exhausted your 12-months of subsidy coverage yet, you’ll be eligible for the subsidy.
Want to check the fine print? See the Library of Congress’ posting of the House bill known as
, including congressional actions — the Senate’s passage today among them –that have amended it. Care to weigh in with your representative or senator on the matter? Try
, respectively.