Health Benefits for Recently Laid Off Employees

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MM / NSIF Comments:

If they can do this for "recently laid off employees", I would think they should be able to do something similar for those of us, who continue to wait years for Dow & other BI Mfgrs. settlements.

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Health benefits sought for those laid off recently

Some worry that plan might take money from New York coffers

10/14/2001

By ROBERT PEAR / New York Times

WASHINGTON – President Bush and Congress are working on legislation to provide health benefits to hundreds of thousands of people laid off in recent months. But they disagree over how to deliver the aid and how much to spend. Nearly two-thirds of Americans receive health insurance through employers. When workers lose their jobs, they often lose health insurance as well. Congress is considering several approaches. One would help laid-off workers pay premiums so they could keep coverage under group health plans operated by their former employers.

Under a 1986 law, many workers have the option of continuing their employer-provided coverage, at their own cost, if they lose their jobs. But fewer than 20 percent of eligible workers take this option. Many jobless workers say they cannot afford the full premiums, which average more than $7,000 a year for families.

Two influential Democratic senators, Max Baucus of Montana and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, have drafted a bill under which the government would, for 12 months, pay half the premiums for workers laid off since Sept. 11, the date of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

The 1986 law provides no assistance to people who work for small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Nor does it help people who bought individual insurance coverage on their own.

For those who cannot obtain benefits under the 1986 law, the proposal would authorize coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people. This option would expire in March 2003. Mr. Baucus is chairman of the Finance Committee, which has authority over Medicaid and tax legislation.

Sen. Jeffords, independent of Vermont, has introduced a bill that would provide laid-off workers with a tax credit equal to half the cost of any health insurance premiums they pay under the 1986 law. The maximum credit would be $110 a month for individual coverage and $290 a month for families.

The tax credit would be available even to people who did not earn enough to owe any income tax. The credit would be paid each month, for a maximum of nine months, to employers or their health plans.

Many lawmakers want to include health insurance subsidies in legislation to revive the economy, which is now moving through Congress.

Sen. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said, "There's a good chance that any agreement on a stimulus package will include some assistance for those who become unemployed as a result of the economic slowdown and the Sept. 11 attacks."

As part of the stimulus package, Mr. Bush said he wanted to provide $3 billion in grants to the states to help jobless workers. The money could be used to pay up to 75 percent of health insurance premiums for laid-off workers or to provide job training or cash benefits to people who have exhausted their unemployment compensation.

Mr. Bush also said that states could provide health insurance to the unemployed by taking money from the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. About $11 billion earmarked for the program remains unspent, he said.

This proposal has provoked a storm of criticism in Congress. Mr. Kennedy, chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said: "This is robbing to pay . During the economic downturn, more children will need health insurance and will be relying on the CHIP program."

Aides to Mr. Baucus and Mr. Kennedy said their proposal would cost $16 billion to $17 billion over two years. Rep. Bill , R- Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has proposed giving the states $3 billion to help newly unemployed people buy health insurance.

F. Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer group, said New York would be "a big loser" under Mr. Bush's proposal. New York has enrolled more people than any other state in the Children's Health Insurance Program. Under existing law, New York receives some of the money left unspent by other states. If those states could spend their money on jobless workers as well as children, less would be available for redistribution to states such as New York that have spent their full allocations.

"States have three years to spend each year's allotment," Mr. Pollack said. "Congress purposely established this time frame to accommodate growth in the program as states enroll more children."

Bush administration officials said they had not realized the effect of their proposal on New York.