COBRA
What we commonly refer to as COBRA, short-term health insurance for the unemployed, was included in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985. It grants workers and their families the option to keep their group insurance health benefits for up to 18 months (although the exact time may vary depending on a number of factors). COBRA enables a worker to purchase health insurance through their ex-employer, if they are subject to a “qualifying event”, even though they no longer work there. A qualifying event includes the end of employment for any reason other than “gross misconduct”, or a reduction in work hours (again for anything other than gross misconduct). Only employers with 20 or more workers are subject to COBRA.
Cry Wolf Quotes
...we remind you that unemployment compensation is not a poverty program. Some claimants have substantial assets. For example, 1979 income tax records reflect more than 1 ½ million tax returns reporting adjusted gross income of $20,000 or higher and also receipt of unemployment compensation. Moreover, when unemployment benefits are combined with other income-support programs, some claimants actually come out better than when they were working.
All too often such well-intended Federal programs simply fuel the flames of spiraling health care cost inflation, diffuse the concentration of limited Federal dollars on the truly medically needy who must rely on Government entitlements for any medical care, and exacerbate the rising uncontrollable element in the Federal deficit which we must get under control if we are going to put people back to work—which is the real objective that would meet the problem addressed by this committee.
Private insurance must be the vehicle for benefit coverage. This new program must not become enmeshed with Medicare and Medicaid. Caution must be expressed lest new troubles be created through expansion of an entitlement concept.
Eligibility for such a program must be limited in scope….Individuals should be excluded if coverage can be obtained by another family member who is eligible for employer-based coverage or is eligible for continuation of an employer-offered health benefit plan. In addition, persons who are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, or other government programs should be required to use such coverage. Stating this more generally, the new benefit should be secondary to other coverage.
