Lawmakers pull off COBRA help

It's too little and probably too late, but Utah lawmakers pulled off a health-care Hail Mary in the closing hour of this year's legislative session by passing a bill that attempts to slow the number of Utahns losing their medical insurance when they lose their job.

HB178 adds new, local provisions for Utah workers to enroll in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, the federal regulation that allows laid-off workers to keep their workplace-based medical insurance coverage going by paying the entire premium.

The bill intends to help working families avoid having the crisis of a job loss turn into financial ruin through medical expenses they're suddenly not insured for and can't afford.

Insurance premiums aren't being reduced, but the 65 percent that had been paid by the employer is being covered by funds from the federal economic stimulus package.

The majority of laid-off workers in Utah and around the country are almost automatically destined to join the ranks of the uninsured. According to a state-by-state assessment of unemployment payments and the cost of COBRA premiums released in January, most people simply can't afford COBRA on their own.

"COBRA health coverage is great in theory and lousy in reality," said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a national health-care policy research nonprofit group. Pollack has consulted with Utah officials trying to reform the health-care system here.

If a laid-off worker with children is lucky enough to receive unemployment, 77 percent of the $1,341 check would be spent maintaining medical coverage. Single Utahns have it easier, but they would still pay 27 percent of their unemployment check to keep coverage.

The bill intends to lessen the double-whammy created by the combination of having the highest national unemployment rate since 1945 and the fact that 80 percent of insured workers — Utahns included — are covered through a workplace medical plan. Utah employers have been at or near the top in the percentage of employers nationwide dropping coverage because they can no longer afford it.

For lawmakers, most of whom had an "it's about the deficit, stupid" approach this session, the bill was about dollars and cents. And it also makes sense, given the widening economic strains, Rep. James Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, said prior to the vote. Dunnigan, who has been heavily involved the planning and initial engineering phase of Utah's health-care system reform project, could see the need increasing with the number of people losing their jobs and the necessity of legislation to address COBRA. He filed a no-text, title-only bill in early February.