President Obama's COBRA Subsidy

This past year I had to take long term disability from my employer. After 90 days they were no longer legally bound to keep me on the payroll. I was terminated. I had been the only one employed in our household. I say employed instead of working because my wife was home schooling and taking care of our five children. That is more than enough work for one person to do and mostly alone. Obviously with a family of seven and our only income being reduced to half of what it was previously we really depended on my company's insurance. After all, a medical reason is why I was out of a job in the first place. I had to have emergency back surgery on December 24, 2008. Being that I was already down with health problems we knew we had to keep some form of insurance. COBRA was our only choice even though the payments would almost equal my total disability check.

Then came the day I logged into our COBRA provider's website and found that President Barack Obama had created a subsidy for people covered by COBRA. This brought my COBRA payment down from $400+ to $144 dollars! I do wonder where the money came from for this subsidy but I cannot look a gift horse in the mouth.

President Obama was not my choice for nominee. For the last 20 years I have voted Republican, but not blindly. There have been times when I knew I had to choose between two evils. But I have to give credit where credit is due. The subsidy was a real life saver.

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan (Republican). It has been an alternative for millions of people who would otherwise lose their insurance coverage after being let go from a job. But it comes with a fairly high price tag for someone who is unemployed.

COBRA coverage is for a limited time period as is the subsidy. Recently though, Obama has extended the subsidy for another 6 months to individuals presently covered by COBRA. I have never liked the idea of depending on the government too much and I plan to go back to work as soon as I am ready but there are some programs in place that are truly a blessing. I would like to thank the President for considering the unemployed and potentially uninsured.