מתוך medicontext.co.il
By Todd Zwillich
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – More than 725,000 people who have lost their jobs since the official start of the recession in March have also lost their health coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the consumer group Families USA.
The figure includes 345,000 workers who lost coverage during September and October, mostly since the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. The numbers do not include workers' dependents and may thus significantly underestimate the total number of new uninsured, the report states.
"It's obvious that the recession is going to be taking a significant toll on healthcare for people," Families USA president Ron Pollack told reporters on Capitol Hill.
The survey comes just as Senate lawmakers prepare to enter negotiations on an economic stimulus package, which is likely to include some government-funded relief for individuals recently left without health insurance.
The package has been on the Senate's front burner for weeks but has encountered repeated impasses over issues such as health coverage for dispossessed workers.
Most Democrats favor using an existing federal law called COBRA to allow dispossessed workers to keep their insurance. Currently, the law allows workers who lose their employer-sponsored coverage to continue buying insurance for 102% of the total policy price.
The average American family would have to pay $7194 per year or $600 per month to purchase coverage outright through COBRA, making the program out of reach for as many as 80% of eligible families, Pollack said.
Democrats want to provide a 75% subsidy that would allow recently unemployed workers to participate in COBRA at a deep discount. The subsidy would last for 18 months.
Not having health coverage "makes the problem of unemployment enormously worse," said Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat who favors the COBRA subsidies.
The Republican-controlled House recently passed its own version of a stimulus package that included $3 billion in block grants to states for unemployed persons. States would be allowed to use the money to extend health coverage through Medicaid or other programs.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) charged Tuesday that subsidizing COBRA would force the government to create a new bureaucracy to fund the program. Lott said that he and fellow GOP Senators would push hard for state block grants as they head into negotiations with Democrats and the White House over the stimulus bill.
"That would get [the money] to the states, the governors, the quickest and get it to the people the quickest," Lott said.
e-Med Tools
קצר קולע וממוקד
e-Med סמינרים
אי-מד תחקירים
Medscape Tools
Journal Club
מרכזי מידע ושירות
Facebook
מידע למפרסם
מאגר תרופות
אינדקס שימושי
חדשות משה"ב
eMed HealthClub
מחקרים קליניים
השאירו תגובה
רוצה להצטרף לדיון?תרגישו חופשי לתרום!