Newly unemployed Americans will have to spend about 30 percent of their jobless benefits on average to pay for health insurance through their former employer, according to a new report.

And if they want coverage for their families, the report by Families USA says it will take more than 80 percent of their unemployment check.

Unemployment hit a 16-year high last month as another 524,000 jobs were cut. For all of 2008, government says the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs.

When workers lose their jobs, they are usually eligible to maintain their health insurance coverage through their old employer if they pay the premiums, plus a 2 percent administrative fee. The benefit is referred to as COBRA insurance, because of the law that established it.

As part of his economic stimulus package, President-elect Barack Obama is proposing to spend about $80 billion dollars to extend unemployment benefits and to subsidize health care for people who have lost their jobs.

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iht4zUWlUoeJ6LxaU8BnPIEhWtlwD95JP6800

The public ranks action on health care highly as part of efforts to stem the impact of the economic recession and also views reforming health care as one of the top priorities for President-elect Obama and Congress, according to a new national survey conducted by researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Americans rank helping the newly unemployed afford health insurance coverage second (picked by 33% as a top priority) behind helping businesses keep or create jobs (45%). Providing states with more federal help to pay for health care of lower income residents ranks third (picked by 31%). These proposed health provisions of the stimulus package ranked ahead of repairing the country’s infrastructure, cutting taxes for the middle class, helping people pay their mortgages (each picked by 27%), and helping large businesses hurt by the recession (13%).

The survey results are available online at http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/posr011509pkg.cfm

Newly unemployed Americans will have to spend about 30 percent of their jobless benefits on average to pay for health insurance through their former employer, according to a new report.

And if they want coverage for their families, the report by Families USA says it will take more than 80 percent of their unemployment check.

Unemployment hit a 16-year high last month as another 524,000 jobs were cut. For all of 2008, government says the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs.

When workers lose their jobs, they are usually eligible to maintain their health insurance coverage through their old employer if they pay the premiums, plus a 2 percent administrative fee. The benefit is referred to as COBRA insurance, because of the law that established it.

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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), making his second appearance on Capitol Hill since he began treatment for a malignant brain tumor in June, told reporters yesterday that he would advance a bill early next year calling for universal health care.

Some Democrats, including members of President-elect Barack Obama’s circle, have begun to view expanded coverage as a longer-term goal.

The brief appearance by Kennedy, who made a surprise return in July to vote on a Medicare bill, represented an opportunity for him to show colleagues that he remains energetic and engaged, and that he intends to reclaim his committee post in January and take charge of the Obama health-care agenda. Some Democrats had speculated that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) would attempt to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703214.html?sub=AR

Much has been said and written about the Democratic candidates’ health-care proposals [front page, Feb. 27]. I question Sen. Barack Obama’s definition of the word “universal.”

Central to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s message is universal health care — meaning that everyone would be covered. Mr. Obama’s plan does not include everyone.

It was a bold move in the 1930s to implement the Social Security Act, and it was a bold move to implement the law establishing Medicare in the 1960s. It will take a courageous president to implement a health care program that truly covers everyone.

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an excellent post recently appeared in the HealthBeat Blog–

http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

The author concludes that the high cost of medicine is greatly enhanced by the fact that consumers who spend their own money and make their own healthcare decisions are the ones who end up costing the system much more in the long run.

By 2017, consumers and taxpayers will spend more than $4 trillion on health care, accounting for one of every $5 spent, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation — will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. But other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011.

With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation’s medical expenses. Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5569497.html

On a brilliantly sunny February morning, Valarie McQueen and Nancy Cancel are walking down some of Hallandale Beach’s meanest streets. McQueen knocks on the door of an apartment. The building’s windows are boarded. There’s litter on the ground.

“We’re from Memorial Healthcare System,” McQueen tells the woman opening the door. “Do you have health coverage?” She says yes but that some of her family members do not. McQueen tells her about the hospital’s mobile health bus parked around the corner with doctors, nurses and a pharmacy on board, then gives the woman a phone number to call for more information.

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2008/02/24/a1f_uninsured_0224.html

The defining difference between the Democratic presidential candidates on the top domestic issue in their recent debate and throughout the campaign has been their contrasting views on a seemingly simple question: Should the government require all Americans to have health insurance?

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Dr. Jose Magana feels powerless.

The nation’s health-care system is controlled by insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants, not the doctors caring for patients, the internal medicine specialist told Democratic congressional candidate Bill Foster and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin Thursday. He wondered aloud how it could be reformed in the best interests of patients.

“Society in general needs to step up,” Magana said during a roundtable discussion among doctors and the two candidates at Dreyer Medical Clinic in Aurora.

Foster, who earned Durbin’s endorsement, supports a public-private hybrid health-care system and said federal lawmakers should examine the results from single-payer universal health-care systems like the one Massachusetts implemented in 2006

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http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=139740&src=2