I talked in my last post about the importance of continued medical treatment in Social Security Disability and SSI cases. It is a familiar scenario that many of our firm’s worker’s compensation clients lose their employer-provided health insurance when they are not able to return to work after they exhaust their FMLA or disability leave. Although they usually are entitled to continued coverage under COBRA, most of our clients cannot afford to pay the hefty premiums.

This week Congress passed a bill that might enable many of our clients to afford continued health coverage under COBRA. (Yes, believe it or not, Congress IS actually passing some bills these days!) In 2009, Congress included a provision in the stimulus bill (ARRA) under which the government reimburses the COBRA provider for 65% of the premium cost, so that the worker only has to pay 35% of what their premium otherwise would be. Originally it only covered workers that were involuntarily terminated from Sept. 1, 2008-Dec. 31, 2009, but in the bill passed this week (the “Temporary Extension Act of 2010”), it now also covers people who are terminated from 9/1/08-March 31, 2010. Premium reductions last for up to 15 months.
As you can guess, there is lots of fine print, so clients that this might pertain to will need to contact their employer’s COBRA provider to see if they qualify. Here’s a link to the DOL website that explains in more detail:

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/cobra.html