If you’re thinking of leaving your job, Cobra may seem like the one part of our screwy health insurance system that actually works. Named for the health insurance provisions in the 1986 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, Cobra ensures that if you leave your job, you won’t also lose your employer-sponsored health insurance. In most cases, you’ll get 18 months coverage on your employer’s plan before you’ve got to come up with other arrangements.

If only it were that simple. It’s distressingly easy to be thrown off of Cobra for no reason at all, and you can count on getting plenty of bad information while you’re trying to get reinstated. Here’s what you need to know to make sure your health insurance coverage continues, even if your job doesn’t.

First, the basics.

Cobra is expensive. In most cases, Cobra allows you to stay on your employer’s health insurance plan. But your employer is no longer going to be paying for it. In 2010, the National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that the cost for Cobra coverage for a family was $13,375.

If, while you were employed, your company deducted $500 a month from your paycheck to cover the cost of health insurance for you and your family, the chances are the company was also paying the insurer about $800 on top of that.

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Congress and the rest of the country will be gobbling on their turkeys on November 25th. But Thanksgiving 2010 will be no feast for those who have lost their jobs, as well as their unemployment benefits. We need to do something to draw attention to the plight of the long-term unemployed. We must be invisible no more!

Be part of a historic event on Saturday, November 20th. Join your fellow unemployed and supporters in recreating an image from the Great Depression. A 1930’s style “breadline” will be staged in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, at 33 Liberty Street in downtown Manhattan, starting at 11:30 am. The media and a documentary filmmaker will be in attendance.

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