The U.S. Health Care System Is Designed To Fail When It's Needed Most
The American health care system leaves us all vulnerable to massive costs and uneven access, even under the best of circumstances. But when the economy goes south, things get really awful.
The novel coronavirus pandemic and the United States’ feckless response to the outbreak has triggered a historic economic downturn that has cost tens of millions of jobs. Because almost half of the country ― about 160 million workers, spouses and dependents ― get their health coverage through an employer, those lost jobs almost always mean lost health insurance.
Between February and May, an estimated 5.4 million people became uninsured because of job loss, according to the liberal advocacy organization Families USA. The group describes this as the largest loss of job-based health benefits in U.S. history, worse even than during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009.
And job losses have continued to mount since May, meaning the number of those who lost health benefits is likely to be much higher now. Many millions more are at risk as the coronavirus outbreak and its economic toll continue to escalate.
Many workers can extend their employer-based health insurance through COBRA, which allows unemployed people to keep their benefits for up to 36 months. But doing so is hugely expensive, as they take on the full cost of premiums without contributions from their former employers. That’s a heavy lift.
The average annual cost of a job-based family health insurance plan is nearly $20,000, which translates to more than $1,600 a month, according to a survey of employers conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation last year. Businesses cover an average of 70% of those premiums while workers are employed, but that goes away when a person is laid off. In May, House Democrats passed legislation that would subsidize COBRA premiums, but Senate Republicans have resisted the idea.
Newly jobless people can buy insurance policies from health insurance exchanges like
