The lowest point in my life is traceable back to October 31, 2001. I was 24, and, as my exit interview with the CEO's wife/HR director ended, I confidently laughed off extending my health insurance via COBRA. The exit interview was held a few minutes after many of my favorite colleagues and I learned we were laid off, so, with my salary suddenly reduced to a fraction of its former self, and the resume feeling a little rusty, I had no appetite for the fees that accompanied COBRA. Plus, I was young, I had seen a gym within the previous year and, best of all, my pops was a doctor.
Naturally, I suffered a herniated disc a month later. It left me practically crippled during the course of my five and a half month job search, and, to make a long story short, it only hurts every now and then, but I am still recovering from it financially.
This experience is reason #12708 why I thank G-d every few minutes for the peaceful transition of power that's about to take place in the White House.
In addition to an extension of unemployment benefits to part time workers, the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" Obama uncovered yesterday calls for protection for laid off workers like me seven years ago. According to the New York Times, the plan 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.
Of course, Obama 700+ billion dollar stimulus plan will face an full frontal assault by the usual tin-eared obstructionists in Congress.
Still, Democrats are wary of slowing down the economic stimulus by provoking the opposition of Republicans, who have warned in recent days that the package must be neither excessive nor rushed. They are also fielding concerns from fiscally conservative Democrats.
But for every Sanford-like, worker-loathing, let-them-eat-cake peep or spineless utterance that escapes their impotent mouths during the course of this debate, I am firing off a thoughtful and convincing letter to my local congress people and the Philadelphia Inquirer in protest. Obama and economists warn of double-digit unemployment if our elected officials fail to act swiftly. That would be quite an albatross to hang around the necks of the same morons who brought us capitulation to Bush and corporate welfare.