The Stimulus – This Time, It’s Personal

I am a product of the depressed economy. The company for whom I previously worked went through a significant reduction in workforce as a result of its close ties to the real estate market and the obvious tribulations being felt in that industry. I was a member of the unfortunate 15 percent laid off at the company, which also makes me a member of a grander, more depressing national unemployment statistic. According to the Colorado Department of Labor that figure stands, at the time of print, at a whopping 8.5 percent. Colorado is one percentage point better than the national average, but 7.5 percent is nothing to write home about, unless you’re writing home to ask for money!

This anecdote explains how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, has immediately and closely affected me personally.

I was laid off on February 3, 2009. On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recover and Reinvestment Act, a 787 billion dollar effort to stabilize our faltering economy. Some call it stimulation. I call it survival.

The two weeks between my lay off and the signing of the stimulus bill were spent equally between two activities: searching for a new job and navigating the bureaucratic regime that is “unemployment” and all the sticky little branches that shoot off of its ugly trunk.

One of those serpentine branches takes the form of COBRA continuation coverage insurance. I came to learn that my insurance benefits at Metrolist, which were significant and so lovely came to an abrupt close at midnight the day of my termination.

I have diabetes. If I don’t have access to insulin, I’m dead. No joke.

Feel free to take a guess what a one-month supply of insulin costs this diabetic at retail. (I blow through two vials a month, and I’m a well-controlled diabetic.)

$227.99

Two vials of insulin. The stuff of my functioning and survival.

So, I’m laid off and my insurance expires at midnight. What am I supposed to do? Never fear, despondent diabetics! COBRA to the rescue! Or so I had hoped. I learned a few weeks after the lay off that COBRA continuing coverage would cost me a $500 premium per month in order to continue the coverage I received when I was employed. I might as well just pay for the damn insulin! (If only insulin were the extent of it – don’t forget about pump supplies, syringes, test strips. It goes on.)

I was not working the sexiest, highest-paying job in the world. In fact, it was pretty low-paying and bland. $500 a month would have been impossible for me when I was employed. Now they expect me to shell it out when I’m not even earning a paycheck. How does that work? Still trying to figure that one out.

Enter big government. I say “government” because, while I am a staunch Obama supporter, I also recognize that the stimulus package was a concerted effort of incredibly many people in Washington on both sides of the aisle.

Amid the lengthy legal jargon of the ARRA, there resides the happiest little provision I’ve ever read in such a boring document. It states that anyone laid off between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 may be eligible for COBRA premium payment assistance – specifically 65 percent of it! So that $500 premium I would have otherwise literally been forced to pay in order to survive is chopped down to a much more manageable $177 per month. I can handle that, barely.

I just received my confirmation in the mail a few days ago that I am considered eligible for the assistance and my monthly obligation to continue health insurance under COBRA is drastically less than it otherwise would have been.

So there it is. The real world application of a bureaucratic nightmare that turned out to truly benefit the people it sought to help. It worked.

I’m happy, jobless, but happy, and best of all, I’ve got three sexy vials of insulin in the fridge just waiting for me to shoot up whenever I need.

Tags: ARRA, COBRA, Insurance, Labor statistics, Obama, Stimulus