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 also oppose those proposals that would increase employers’ labor costs. Mandating through tax penalties that employers carry laid-off workers for some specified period or open health plan enrollment to spouses, or contribute to an assigned-risk pool, would place them in double financial jeopardy. Employers’ response could be to drop their health care plans altogether and/or lay off more workers.
...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.
In our view, any program created should be temporary. It should remain in place for a limited period of time with a sunset provision. Such a requirement would establish the need for Congress and the nation to reevaluate the continuation of or modifications to the program on a regular basis rather than creating another ‘untouchable’ entitlement program.
…we oppose Federal financing for such programs [that provide health care for the unemployed], since Federal deficits are already at record high levels. We also oppose new entitlement programs that have the potential to become open-ended. Some proposals amount to welfare programs without appropriate means tests.
