Draft of Senate jobs bill extends COBRA subsidy

Business Insurance: "Federal COBRA health insurance premium subsidies would be extended and expanded under a draft jobs bill being put together by top Senate Democrats, sources say." The bill "would extend the current COBRA premium subsidy provided to involuntarily terminated employees another three months so employees laid off in March, April and May of this year would be eligible for the 65% subsidy for up to 15 months. Under current law, employees involuntarily terminated from Sept. 1, 2008, through Feb. 28, 2010, are eligible for a 15-month premium subsidy. ... The White House earlier proposed extending for 12 months COBRA premium subsidies for employees laid off from March 1 through Dec. 31 of this year" (Geisel, 2/9).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.