The price of health care Roanoke Times
Aid available to the newly unemployed to help lower the cost of health insurance isn't reaching everyone, leaving many without affordable access to medical care.
"I'd love to get it," Robert Blevins of Roanoke said about health insurance. "I've got three kids, they've got it. ... But I can't get it for me."
Blevins was laid off in April. He had the job, which did not come with benefits, through a temporary placement service. He's now collecting unemployment and working a part-time job that again does not include health insurance.
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- President Obama's economic stimulus package -- the government set up a system to reduce the premium paid by recently laid off workers seeking to continue the health insurance they had when employed.
Virginia set up a similar program to help workers laid off from small businesses with 20 or fewer employees.
But insurance experts familiar with the new federal and state guidelines say it appears few people are using the programs and many others don't qualify.
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Roanoke TimesThe price of health careRoanoke TimesCundiff, 64, lost his job on May 21, and his employer-sponsored insurance runs out at the end of the month. He was one of the last of the 136 workers to be and more »
