Posted on 01/04/2009 6:46:52 AM PST by reaganaut1
CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment compensation as they begin intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package.
One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.
Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible, for the first time, to apply for Medicaid coverage.
The proposals indicate the sorts of potentially long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push in his promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as he named it in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. They will be combined with one-time measures that are more typical of federal stimulus packages to jump-start a weak economy, like spending for roads and other job-creating public works projects.
As the economy worsened in the weeks after Mr. Obama’s election, advisers and Congressional leaders suggested that a stimulus plan would be ready by the new year for House votes this week. But the House is not expected to vote until next week at the earliest, which will most likely push final action into February, Democratic aides said.
The aides said delays were probably inevitable given the holiday interruptions, the big ambitions of the undertaking and internal tensions over the plan’s components and their costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It’s the beginning spoonfuls of universal health care. You get them to swallow the idea by working on people’s emotions, much the same as he used emotions to win the election.
And yes, why bother to work anymore? I know of a gal who makes $12/hour, single mother, qualified for a $150K house and has money to spare. She gets free day care and all kinds of subsidies. She qualified for four years of free college (while a certain college student I know works 2 jobs to help pay for his college and even with that will leave with a huge debt) and declined because why go through all that trouble when she can get things for free?
“Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra”
If you’re worried about the people, wouldn’t it make more sense to help the employEES? Workers at my company who’ve left have reported the COBRA cost is way out of reach.
No, but I would do away with the temporary layoff nonsense that gets used as vacations.
I would also limit the time you could draw it to about 12 weeks.
Socialists, in all their wisdom and compassion, always neglect to consider the human nature when conjuring up their utopian ideas.
These are good conservative thinking guys; rather be working like everybody would. I hope Obama does extend benefits, maybe you would too if you were in their shoes; you might be someday the way things are going. Unemployment is only bad when your the guy laid off.
I never said anything of the sort. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's a simple fact that the longer people get paid while not working, the longer it tends to be before they get back to working again. I have no problem with there being a safety net there for people that lose a job by no fault of their own, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere.
PS: You shouldn't put words into people's mouths. It makes you lose creditability. Especially on here, where it's so easy to look back and see what others have said.
No workers pay into the unemployment system - only the employer pays, so including part-time workers within the unemployment benefit system would be a new tax on small and big employers and a nightmare to administer at the state level.
Obama nightmare is about to happen!
Fixed their typo.
It's been a long time coming and we have no one to blame but our own politicians -- and ourselves for not holding their feet to the fire. The project of turning America into a Socialist/Communist state was begun in the 1930s and accelerated in the 1960s.
Roosevelt-Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon created the foundations for a socialist welfare state and New World Order. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, and company are merely adding the totalitarian bells and whistles.
Unemployment taxes are paid by employers, except in a few states. One argument is that taxes paid for part-timers, who can't receive benefits have been subsidizing unemployment insurance for full timers who can.
This is being promoted by the National Employment Law Project, a George Soros funded entity. Every liberal bill proposed in the last 6 years will be thrown into this Obamination recovery bill.
Taxes are already being paid by employers on part-time workers. It will be a nightmare to administer. Unemployment agencies across the country can't handle the current load. California is getting 2 million call attempts per day.
Taxes paid by employers are largely passed on to workers in the form of lower wages. If employers are paying in to the unemployment compensation fund on behalf of part-time workers, those workers should be eligible for benefits. Maybe it would be better to scrap both employer contributions and unemployment benefits for part-time workers.
Me too. Work 25 years and it’s looking like I’ll get laid off at 50 so the company can have a bigger profit margin than it already has. Never took any leave except approved vacation. Been paying into the system for years. I give up. I’ll take the extended vacation. Perhap something good will come out of it. Maybe after of few years of paying for this, people will finally wake up.
I guess I get somewhat turned off when too many freepers see only part of the picture; the side that fits their ultra conservative dreams of how we can go back to the day of no taxes or social structure in America. I just don't see that occurring, and have friends who have lost their jobs as of late;; republican friends.
No offence KORN, I was meaning several of the people who posted.
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