Stimulus to offer health subsidies for jobless, senator says - Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - The economic stimulus package now being assembled on Capitol Hill will include significant subsidies to help the newly unemployed keep their health insurance after they lose their jobs, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said yesterday.
COBRA benefits let laid-off workers keep their group healthcare coverage for up to 18 months, but the benefits are too expensive for many unemployed people because they must pay the full cost of their premiums - typically more than $1,000 a month for a family. Democratic senators want the federal government to ease that burden so more people can keep their insurance.
"It's pretty much been agreed to," said Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who heads the Senate finance panel. "COBRA is just so expensive."
Massachusetts is virtually alone in subsidizing COBRA premiums for the unemployed, paying 80 percent of the cost for low- and middle-income people for about a year. But an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Kennedy is working to make sure the federal subsidy would replace state money.