Ok, you’ve just been laid off and your employer has been paying let’s say 65% of your healthcare benefits. Not only are you out of work, you’re faced with COBRA where you have to pay 102% of the total premium, which is $1800/month for a couple. Let’s see, you need a roof over your head, food in your belly, lights and heat/AC. You need gas to go job hunting, a modem because few job applicants, at least in the professional sector, rely upon hoofing it with printed resumes.
Even under ARRA/COBRA one has to pay several months retroactively in order to get coverage, which may never happen. In the meantime many company health care plans are no good. And what if there’s a pre-existing condition, even though one is not ill?
First thing I’d recommend is to stop giving our money to the bankers and insurers who took this money from us once, now you’re letting them do it again and again. Stop giving it to auto manufacturers who are bleeding so badly they can’t live anyway without restructuring or merging.
Focus on health care and social security. Your first move should not be to require every American to buy their own insurance. You’re giving these companies big bucks and they currently provide for their employees because they wouldn’t be competitive in the marketplace if they did not. Give them any incentive not to do so and there’s mayhem.
Government affordability standards are arbitrary and normally ridiculous, along with the instructions and billing provisions for COBRA. That’s what happens in a representative democracy made up of lawyers with government health care packages for life. If we “little people” knew any better, we’d all run for Congress and get on the government dole.
Sorry, but you can’t fix a problem by throwing our money at the fat cats who caused this economic bloodbath then mandating that we buy our own insurance at any rate the insurers choose. Remember also that the insurance industry wants to be regulated state-by-state, not nationally and they’ve fought tooth and nail to stay that way. Think about what alliances are being made here. They’re certainly not with us, the American people.
That’s my rant for the day. Hope yours was better than mine. Dee
ps It’s cold dinner night. I’ve got choices: rotisserie chicken (grocery store); baked beans with cheddar and bacon; hard-cooked eggs; sliced tomatoes with balsamico and olive oil; sharp Cabot cheddar; Tuscan bread; Jim’s fav lettuce wedge with Thousand Island, that’s about it. He’s on his way so I’ll get the eggs peeled and chicken and tomatoes sliced. Cheers! Dee
Cooking with Dee 
Whatever happens, don’t reduce large employers’ incentives to provide good health insurance for their employees. When the government mucks it up, they’ll be our only shelter.
And if the government’s only thought is to nullify exposure for small businesses, then people will flock to open small businesses but no-one will want to work for them. A seventeen year-old druggie, perhaps, who’ll steal them blind, but not an honest single mother who’s got her child in daycare. Who is the President and Congress out to “assist” in this health care reformation? Does it sound like you? Sure doesn’t sound like me.
I’ve a rant of my own forming due to my husband’s dealings with our local BC/BS company, which recently canceled the “small group” plan his employer has been in for years. The runaround, non-answers, and “you can’t be serious” policies he has encountered have been astounding (and scary). In yesterday’s call, two reps couldn’t even answer his simple question: “Do I have coverage now or not?”
Also, a timely article in today’s WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124407903047283723.html
We’re now faced with COBRA at $880 or Marketplace at $4,500. Guess?