Site: New York Times
Post: Patients seen putting off surgery, or rushing it
Author: Kevin Sack
Posting's URL link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/14surgery.html?_r=1&hp

"The slowdown is likely to have significant financial repercussions. Elective operations are typically covered by private insurance plans that tend to reimburse hospitals and doctors at higher rates than government insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid. As those payments dwindle, so do hospital profit margins and the resources to provide charity care to a growing number of uninsured."

The interesting thing is that this does not just apply to elective surgeries. People are declining to obtain healthcare because they cannot afford to make the co-pay or the "bread-winner" of the family recently lost his or her job; and, the insurance stopped.

Now I know that when you leave a job voluntarily, the employee has the option to enroll in a COBRA plan. But, I have to admit that I don't know what happens when you are laid off. I can only deduce that some sort of COBRA or equivalent plan is available.

At least I hope so.

For example, my husband's company like many other companies, has issued lay-offs. One particular lay-off strikes a chord with me. A man who had been with the company for over a decade was given a pink slip the day before his wife was scheduled to have a C-Section for their first child. THE DAY BEFORE. So what do they do next? Does the couple call the OB and ask them to move the time-line forward 24 hours so that they have full access to the health benefits?

What would you do?