Obama Considers Major Expansion in Jobless Aid

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: New York Times, Page One

President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment compensation as they begin intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package.

One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.

Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible, for the first time, to apply for Medicaid coverage.

The proposals indicate the sorts of potentially long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push in his promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as he named it in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. They will be combined with one-time measures that are more typical of federal stimulus packages to jump-start a weak economy, like spending for roads and other job-creating public works projects....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/us/politics/04stimulus.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[annabanana]

1. I'm liking what I'm hearing as an emergency relief effort. . .

These should be done while wer're reforming the whole health delivery system. .

[POAS]

2. If they would extend Medicare

coverage to anyone eligible for Social Security (primarily that would mean anyone over 62) I'd retire now and my employer would have to replace me. That would mean one of my laid off coworkers would be back to work.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Very good point, POAS. nt

[MilesColtrane]

4. To the simpletons out there who think that there's no difference between Democrats...

...and Republicans: take note of this.

[knowledgeispwr]

5. They'll probably ignore it in the face of a more inflammatory, but more inconsequential story. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

7. Yeah, no way we'd be getting this with the McCain administration

Heaven forbid.

[doodadem]

6. Cobra is too cost-prohibitive

For the unemployed, it costs an incredible amount of money to continue your insurance under Cobra. I'm self-employed, and my husband always carried our insurance under his employer. He was laid off last June, and we haven't had insurance since. Just could not afford to have those costs quadrupled, while struggling to pay the rest of our bills on less than half of his former salary.

This brings up another question: Does anyone remember hearing a few months ago, that there was legislation going forward that would drop the big penalties for having to draw out your 401K for use in extreme circumstances--such as losing your job? I haven't heard anything more about it, and that's exactly what we're faced with now. My husband didn't have all that much in his, but it's going to be a third less when they extract the penalties. We need all of it.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. You have really been caught in the middle of all of this. Thanks for posting...

your real-life experience. If I find any info on these issues as I go through the websites I look at, I'll post it. And best of luck to you and your husband. I hope '09 brings better times.

[Ken Burch]

9. Good, but it needs to be tied to REAL expansion of job training and public works programs

Training people in the inner cities in alternative energy technologies and putting them to work installing those technologies in their neighborhoods at Davis-Bacon wages would be a good start.

[Wednesdays]

10. K&R nt

[Donnachaidh]

11. Cobra should be abolished entirely

That program does nothing more that drop the entire cost of insurance on the person who is laid off.

Imagine, going from paying $210 per month into the cost of insurance with your employer, getting laid off, and then getting a letter saying, sure, you can keep your coverage, but your MONTHLY payment is now $1200!

You don't even get warning of this increase - just a bill informing you of the cost and the ADDED penalties if you make the first few payments late (and that always happens, because they back date your coverage to the last day you worked).

It's a RACKET, pure and simple.

STOP playing with the programs that FAIL -- and give us UNIVERSAL health CARE. NOT insurance ponzi schemes, not FAILED Cobra plans -- the REAL DEAL.

[eridani]

12. This is more like it. You get $1.64 worth of stimulus for $1.00 investment that way

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=52888&mesg_id=52888