COBRA subsidy gets 31-day extension

WASHINGTON – Along with unemployment benefits, the bill approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday after the end of Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning’s filibuster also extends the COBRA employer tax credit through March 31 and makes more people eligible for the benefit.
President Barack Obama signed the measure, the Temporary Extension Act of 2010, within hours of the Senate vote.
The COBRA provisions not only extend eligibility for the 15-month, 65-percent subsidy to people who are involuntarily terminated between March 1 and March 31, but it also allows people who lost their employer-sponsored coverage due to a reduction of hours, and were then laid off, to also get the COBRA subsidy.
Congress is still considering a longer-term extension of the subsidy, through the year’s end, though workers may have to meet stricter requirements to prove they were laid off.
For more guidance from a local expert, see the updates and guidance posted by Kimberly I. McCarthy, an attorney at Partridge, Snow & Hahn in Providence, on the firm’s Web site.