States would receive federal funds to open Medicaid health programs to the unemployed. And workers laid off between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009, could qualify for help paying 65% of the cost of keeping coverage under their former employers’ insurance.
Under current law, many workers who lose their jobs can stay on their employers’ health insurance for 18 months — if they can afford to pay the full tab plus a 2% administrative charge ..
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last updated: January 27, 2009 01:04:53 AM
As if losing their jobs and homes wasn’t enough, Californians are struggling to keep their health insurance.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, gives people the option to maintain the same insurance they had when employed. But it doesn’t make that insurance affordable, especially to those living on unemployment checks.
Premiums consume 81.6 percent of the typical Californian’s Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON – The average unemployment check in Illinois
would get largely eaten up to pay for health insurance through a
benefit called COBRA.
A report released Friday says a newly unemployed breadwinner in
Illinois would have to spend 84 percent of his or her jobless
benefits to pay for health insurance for a family.
The report says the average monthly unemployment benefit in
Illinois is just over $1,300, while the average monthly family
COBRA Read the rest of this entry »

“People have contacted unemployment and have not been able to get through at all, and when they have, they sometimes haven’t been given information about the Medical Security Program,” said Health Care for All counselor Hannah Frigand.
The medical program is run by the same state office that administers unemployment, and Hamlett said that every applicant who files for unemployment is mailed an application and brochure about health coverage.
Unlike Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON — The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession. For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured and the unemployed, in ways they have long yearned to do.
With little notice and no public hearings, House Democrats would create a temporary new entitlement allowing workers getting Read the rest of this entry »