The 50 Percent Solution
According to a January 2009 Families USA report, on average, an unemployed worker would have to spend 83.6 percent of his unemployment check to pay for COBRA family coverage. In Alabama, it would take 114.2 percent. In Alaska - 131.7 percent. Given the high cost, it is not surprising that COBRA participation historically runs between 18 to 23 percent.
That’s why unemployed people across the country were elated when they heard the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 would finally offer some relief.
And then, the details came out.
The plan was only applicable to those who had been terminated between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009.
The benefits would only last for nine months.
Why? Nobody knows. It’s arbitrary. A compromise worked out between the House and Senates’ versions of the bill.
Is this really the way we govern ourselves now?
We flip a coin? Throw a dart at a calendar?
I have heard a lot of after the fact rationalizations. The administrative burden on companies would be too high. It would cost too much to help everybody. None of these explanations are particularly useful in that they don’t give us a good policy reason to explain September 1, 2008 or nine months of benefits.
Is it just too late for all of those who were laid-off prior to September 1, 2008? Are we writing them off?
Are those who were laid-off prior to September 1, 2008 more likely to abuse the benefit by seeking more colonoscopies than they are entitled to?
Since we are apparently a poor country now and we have to make sacrifices, I have a few bipartisan solutions we can think about to cut costs.
Why not a Korea type solution for Iraq and Afghanistan. Pick a latitude - we get everything to the South? Half the territory - half the cost. We can get some advertising executives working on a slogan for us. Democracy light, maybe.
Or, how about this – Why not reduce the number of Senators and Congressman by half. There’s really no go reason to have 100 senators. 50 would work just fine and probably get more stuff done. Why 435 representatives when 217 and a half would do just fine. We can cut the last one in half, King Solomon like.
How should we chose which Senators and Congressman to keep and which ones to throw away? We’ll just pick a date on the calendar. If they we first elected before that date, we dump them.
We can do better – We can do the right thing. Speak out. Sign the petition. Enlist your friends.
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