You realize, of course, that under COBRA you're paying the full-boat rate for the insurance you pick up. Caught in a layoff when the FDA didn't approve the drug I was working on, I did that: for my son and I and it was costing me just under $13,000/year. And that was a couple of years ago.
Someone who's just lost a job may have trouble with that. I was lucky because I slipped right into doing freelance work and could afford it. Some people are stuck.
Seems a little fishy, do you know what plan he is on?
Don't know where he is from but all areas I am aware of he can't be fired if he goes on disability. If he becomes temporarily disabled, he needs to first exhaust short term/long term disability periods with his company by retaining coverage under his group plan as long as he is employed.
If he becomes permanently disabled he needs to apply for Medicare benefits. SSA will tell him what Medicare benefits are available. File for that disability claim ASAP because pay is calculated from the day he files NOT the day he becomes disabled.
If he terminates employment because of his disability he may be able to continue coverage under his group plan. Employees or their dependent/s who are determined to be disabled under the Social Security Act within the first 60 days of continuation coverage (COBRA) are eligible to extend their 18 months to 29 months.
He should contact his group administrator and get advise on continuation coverage under his health plan. When he signed up for his group plan he should have received a booklet on his coverage, now is the time to re-read it, all of it. His doctors/medical office/hospital could be a good place to get advise as well.
Don't take NO for an answer. Permanent disability can take some strange twists and turns but I doubt he would have much trouble. It is normal to have an orthopedic claim denied twice before finally being awarded on the third try (second appeal using a lawyer). In the case of cancer I hope disability won't work that way.
My Wife was diagnosed and treated for cancer a few times. She went on temporary disability when she couldn't work. She was able to stay on the companies group plan each time till she was able to return to work.
It should be illegal for him to be fired or otherwise terminated for going on temporary disability. Again I don't know where he is from or what laws apply to his specific area.
In some regions a company with 50 or more employees their group plan cannot exclude preexisting conditions. On his application he only need disclose medical conditions that will limit his ability to perform his job.
Payroll deductions, that's why he has state/federal short and long term disability plans that apply to him in this case. Also if supplemental plans were offered through his group insurance, hopefully he took advantage and signed up for them.
One way or another they will be stopped. The question is how?
If it is done by phased reasonable regulation over an extended period, say 5 years, the socio-economic disruption to the country as a whole should be minimal, although it will devastate some in the banking/financial industry currently receiving multi-million dollar annual bonuses, and it will severely disrupt if not destroy the "old boy" network that is the basis for the current "crony casino" capitalism [as it is designed to do].
The alternative, no matter how much political influence is wielded by financial institutions, is a financial/fiscal collapse, beyond anyone's control or management, quite likely due to external events such as an abrupt and precipitous fall in the international value of the U.S. Dollar (and collapse in the U.S. credit rating), with devastating effects on the U.S. aggregate society and economy that is largely based on the import of critical materials such as oil and increasingly food.
Like the mechanic said in the old oil filter ad "pay me now or pay me {much more} later."
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
=========== It is one thing to have the opportunity to continue medical coverage mandated by law. It is quite another to pay for it if you are out of work.
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
========= While not one of the overt objectives, the three pronged actions suggested actually avoids having to treat the major financial institutions, including the banks, as public utilities with constant governmental oversight of their daily operations, limitations on rates of return, control of investments and improvements, and possibly mandated "public" representatives on their board of directors.
Historically, "public utilities" exist as a separate class of private business because of their inate monopoly nature. The economic reality is such that it not practical to have "competition" in some capital intensive areas such as electrical power generation/distribution at the consumer level, natural gas distribution, etc. Theoretically a monopoly is allowed to exist/operate, possibly under a governmental franchise, but is subject to much greater governmental regulation including limits on pricing and returns on investment. [Note the use of the word theoretically.]
The three suggested reforms should eliminate the current system of financial Oligopoly and result in increased competition and financial viability, *WITHOUT* the need for "close and constant {governmental} supervision," (beyond routine compliance auditing) especially if the "small enough to fail" size caps are enacted.
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
And what is this "hidden agenda," George?
Indeed....Oh most definately Indeed
Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do something damned nasty to all three of them.
========= More on COBRA and the COBRA 65% subsidy from the WSJ.
=========
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
============ To amplify Gunner's observation with a regional news item about one of the state's most affluent areas see:
From rustic vineyards to elegant country clubs, the rolling hills of El Dorado County paint a picture of quiet wealth.
But the recession is taking a toll on an area that traditionally has been one of the most privileged in California.
El Dorado County's unemployment rate was 12.6 percent in December, matching Yolo's for the highest three-year jump in the Sacramento region. Foreclosures continue to batter the area, with
889 homes lost in the county last year, 150 more than in 2008.Perhaps most startling for an area that boasts $35,000 club memberships and $100 pedicures, the number of people dependent on food stamps in El Dorado County jumped 31 percent between September 2008 and September 2009, according to the California Budget Project.
That number is more than five points higher than the statewide increase, and the biggest jump in the region. "We're not seeing a slowdown. We're probably up (over last year) around 35 to 40 percent now," said Cynthia Wallington, program manager in the county's Department of Human Services.
=========
Be sure and at least scan the reader comments.
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
============= More information on actual under- and un- employment rates in the U.S. continues to dribble in, much of it in the foreign press.
By John Mervin Business reporter, BBC News, New York
The headline number only reveals a small part of the problem.
So a common comparison these days is the recession of 1982-83 - that's the last time America grappled with 10% unemployment.
Which means it's chilling to note that it now takes twice as long (more than 20 weeks) as it did in 1982-83 for an unemployed person to find their next job.
Unemployment is always nasty. But it's even worse when it's accompanied not just by stress and anxiety but by real deprivation.
That is the experience of increasing numbers of Americans as unemployment benefits run out before the next job can be found.
Bigger number
Read a little further through the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly report and jobless rates that are already way too high for comfort, only get higher.
President Obama
Like all developed economies, the US has arrived at its method of counting the unemployed over many years and via some controversial choices.
As a consequence, the headline unemployment rate, the one that's still stubbornly close to 10%, is in fact a rather narrow measure.
To be counted in that oft-reported tenth of the labour force you have to be out of work, and have actively looked for a job in the past four weeks.
It's the four weeks requirement that cuts out a lot of people who would undoubtedly like a job, if there were any jobs to be applied for, much less secured.
Don't worry, the Bureau does count those people - it just doesn't count them in the official unemployment rate, the one that gets reported first and most frequently by journalists battling for space and air time.
Instead, they get defined as things like "marginally attached" or "discouraged" workers.
This allows the Bureau to offer "alternative measures of labour underutilisation", which, to the untrained ear, sounds like awful gobbledygook and unemployment by another name.
And if you take the widest of these measures, which in plain English counts everyone who doesn't have a full time job, and blames that on economic reasons (as opposed to blaming it on being sick, old, or in training) then America's "labour underutilisation" rate went past 17% at about the time its "unemployment" rate hit 10%.
A rate of 17% presents everyone with a picture of an American economy where more than one in six people who want a job, can't get one.
Because if America's economy has moved out of recession, it remains mired in an unemployment crisis.
FWIW -- the essential first step in solving any problem is identifying it.
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
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