Byline: Shawn Doherty
If you are laid off this year in Wisconsin and want to continue your family's health care coverage, it could cost you almost your entire unemployment check each month.
The average monthly unemployment benefit in Wisconsin in 2008 was $1,172. The average health insurance premium was $1,095 for a family and $400 for an individual. That leaves just $77 for a family and $672 for a lone adult to cover all other basic living expenses including rent or mortgage payments, heat and utilities, food, and clothing.
See Families USA figures in the spreadsheets below.
No wonder the growing ranks of the unemployed are also rapidly becoming the growing ranks of the uninsured, according to a report released Friday by Families USA, a Washington-based consumer advocacy organization that focuses on health care reform.
In November 2008, 10.3 million people, or 8.5 percent of the population, were unemployed in the U.S. In Wisconsin, the unemployment rate jumped 1 percent from the previous year to 5.3 percent.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday morning that the number of unemployed increased to 11.1 million in December for an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent.
At last national count in 2007, 46 million people lacked health insurance. In Wisconsin in 2007, 489,000 people lacked health insurance for part or all of the previous year. A rule of thumb is that for every 1 percentage point increase in the jobless rate, the number of people lacking health insurance jumps by 1.1 percent.
The Families USA report, 'Squeezed! Caught between unemployment Benefits and Health Care Costs,' shows how difficult it is for people who have lost their jobs to afford a program that was set up to be their safety net.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act is a federal law that requires employers to allow former workers to remain in the company's group health plan for a period of time, generally 18 months, if those workers pay the full cost of coverage plus a 2 percent administrative fee. COBRA was designed to provide a vital health care lifeline for struggling families. But many people can't afford to grab on to it.
In Wisconsin, the COBRA premium for families eats up 93.4 percent of the monthly unemployment check. For individuals, the premium uses 34.1 percent of the check.
'These numbers are just insane,' said Airrion Andrews, a spokesman for Families USA. 'They are an obvious deterrent to people being able to pay for health care coverage.'
Unable to afford COBRA, the only option for many of the unemployed is to search for coverage on their own. Some of them then ram into another wall: those with prior health problems frequently find that no insurer with sell them a policy that will cover their pre-existing conditions.
And so, the report concludes, 'many American workers will find themselves in a catch-22.'
Shawn Doherty - 1/09/2009 9:12 am
CAPTION(S):
CHART SHOWS Burden of COBRA for families receiving unemployment
benefits, 2008
Burden of COBRA for individuals receiving unemployment benefits, 2008
Bill Olmsted/Associated Press
Longtime GM employee Bob Pohlman does an electrical component installation
for the last time on Dec. 23 at the GM Janesville plant, where 1,200 were laid
off.
