Is the ARRA encouraging bad behavior?

I’m sure by now everyone involved in the benefits business has read about the new COBRA provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka “The Stimulus Package.” If you don’t know a lick about it, then you had better do some Google research. It’s going to affect agents and business folks alike!

Since I only have a few words to write in this article, I can’t really go through the entire scope of the Act. Plus if I did, it would be boring and I’d lose my audience, and be forced to go out and sell more insurance! One of the features of the ARRA involves providing a 65 percent federal subsidy of the COBRA premium for employees who are involuntarily terminated from their employer. The term “involuntarily” is up to speculation. But, but for all intents and purposes, it involves employees who are laid-off, fired, downsized, right-sized or whatever other term the HR gurus are using to give employees the heave-ho.