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"This short report makes a strong case for bipartisan reforms that would help unemployed workers and their families retain health coverage. The approach discussed in the paper could also accomplish other important goals, such as providing states with much-needed fiscal relief." -Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow and Johnson Chair, Brookings Institution
"This report helps to sketch out how refundable tax credit proposals to help insure unemployed Americans can be blended with other approaches in ways that make good political and technical sense. And as the authors point out, the federal government can and should help states to improve available coverage to these families by establishing systems similar to Congress' own FEHBP health program. This is exactly the kind of approach that can win bipartisan support." -Stuart Butler, Vice President, Domestic and Economic Policy, Heritage Foundation
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Help Wanted: Extending Health Insurance to Laid-Off Workers ESRI announces a new Current Policy Series paper by Lynn Etheredge and Stan Dorn With more than 8 million Americans now looking for work, and forecasters predicting that unemployment will remain at current levels throughout 2003 and 2004, Congress has an opportunity to consider proposals that would help laid-off workers who become uninsured. This paper released today by Covering America, a project of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), outlines a plan to provide health coverage to unemployed workers, who frequently lose their health insurance when they are laid off. The number of unemployed has been above 8 million during each of the past 15 months. Based on the most recent numbers from the Census Bureau and the Department of Labor, the report finds that 3.9 million laid-off workers currently lack health coverage. "The health system's most basic flaw, for many Americans, is that a pink slip can end health insurance coverage," said lead author Lynn Etheredge of George Washington University's Health Insurance Reform Project. "Compelling factors favor timely action to provide health coverage assistance for laid-off workers." Bipartisan approaches have previously addressed part of this problem. The Trade Act passed last summer provided tax credits to help pay health insurance premiums for laid-off workers displaced by foreign competition. This new paper explains how federal policymakers can build on that bipartisan effort and provide tax credits to help all involuntarily unemployed workers buy affordable health coverage. Such a policy could also be structured to provide needed fiscal relief for state Medicaid and SCHIP programs. "Last year's effort showed that bipartisan compromise on this issue is possible," added ESRI's Stan Dorn, co-author of today's report. "This paper provides a practical framework to help federal decision-makers respond to the more than 90 percent of Americans who, according to public opinion research described in our report, support providing health coverage to laid-off workers." This publication is part of a series from Covering America that addresses current policy questions and broader system design issues related to health coverage. To view the longer, annotated version, click here.
Covering America promotes serious consideration of a diverse range of comprehensive proposals to provide affordable health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. The Covering America project is coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute in Washington, D.C., and is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey. The Foundation does not endorse the findings of this or any independent research or policy project.
To subscribe to future mailings: announcements@esresearch.org To unsubscribe: announcements@esresearch.org
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