COBRA Premium Subsidy Extended Again

COBRA Premium Subsidy Extended … Again

On March 2, 2010, President Obama sighed into law the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 which extends the eligibility period for the COBRA premium subsidy to those involuntarily terminated from February 28, 2010 to March 31, 2010. The Act also allows individuals to receive the COBRA premium subsidy if they first lost group health coverage due to a reduction in hours, and then were involuntarily discharged after enactment of the Act. The Temporary Extension Act is meant to serve as a temporary stop gap to give Congress time to pass a bill extending the COBRA subsidy program through the end of 2010.

As of March 10, 2010, both the House and the Senate have passed versions of the Tax Extenders Act of 2009 which will extend the COBRA premium subsidy program through December 31, 2010. A conference committee currently is working to reconcile the two versions of the bill. Hopefully, it will be ready for President Obama’s signature before the most recent extension expires on March 31.

The Department of Labor has posted on its COBRA web page updated model notices reflecting the Temporary Extension Act of 2010. The model notices are available at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRAmodelnotice.html. The Department also revised the COBRA Premium Reduction Fact Sheet to include information on the updated model notices. The revised Fact Sheet is available at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fscobrapremiumreduction.html.