Finding a gap In health insurance: Coverage is an added burden for jobless

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1208&u_sid=10562845

Published Friday February 13, 2009
Finding a gap In insurance: Coverage is an added burden for jobless
BY JOE RUFF
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Joan Blackburn has been out of work and without health insurance for an eye condition since April, when she lost her job at a hotel reservation company.


Joan Blackburn, who made about $430 a week at her old job, now gets about $180 a week in unemployment benefits and can't afford the $300 monthly premium to remain in her former employer's health plan.

"Any insurance company I've talked to has said, 'We'll insure you, but nothing retina-related,'" Blackburn said recently as she filled out a job application at a Labor Department Workforce Development site in Omaha.

Blackburn's retinas spontaneously detach, leaving her unable to see. Multiple surgeries have left her right eye nearly closed.

She owes her doctor for treatments received since she lost her job in a restructuring.

Blackburn, 44, is not alone. She is among millions of people nationwide and thousands in Nebraska and Iowa who have lost their jobs and are without health insurance.

Advocacy group Families USA estimates that 54 percent of low- and moderate-income people without jobs in December were without health insurance.

In Nebraska, about 9,000 of 16,900 low- and moderate-income unemployed workers, or about 54 percent, lacked health insurance, the group said. In Iowa, the number was about 16,500 of 31,280 people, or about 53 percent.

FULL story at link.