Posted on June 8, 2010 15:08
Categories: Employer and Individual Insurance | Legislative and Regulatory Issues
Topics: COBRA | Employer-Sponsored Coverage | Individual Coverage | Legislation (National) | Out-of-Pocket
A study by the U.S. Treasury Department estimates that between one quarter and one third of unemployed Americans eligible for COBRA subsidies under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) took advantage of the program. The subsidy covers 65 percent of the cost of continuing a former employer’s health insurance plan for up to 15 months. The study followed 6,000 unemployed New Jersey residents in the fall and winter of 2009.
From the report:
Overall, the results suggest that COBRA has been an important source of insurance coverage during the recession, especially for the middle class. Indeed, the availability of the program may have significantly slowed the growth of the uninsured population, which had been skyrocketing through February 2009. Figure 1 shows that a sudden flattening in the growth of the uninsured adult population began around the time that employers and employees received guidance on the
ARRA COBRA subsidy. The large participation in the COBRA program by unemployed middleclass workers could have been a major contributing factor to the relative stability in the share of Americans without health insurance since February 2009.
Full report: COBRA Insurance Coverage since the Recovery Act: Results from New Survey Data (PDF | 186.59 KB)
U.S. Treasury Department, Office of Economic Policy. (2010). COBRA insurance coverage since the Recovery Act: results from new survey data.
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