cobra

With the unemployment rate at almost 10% and companies cutting back on benefits, millions of people are responsible for securing their own health insurance. Picking the right plan for you can be tricky, so DailyFinance asked consumer health experts for tips on how to maximize benefits while minimizing costs.

If you think there have to be better ways for an uninsured person to get health care than robbing a bank, you're right. Yes, most people get their health insurance from their employers, but if you're one of the nation's nearly 14 million unemployed, you still have options. Here's what you need to know.

Vietnam veteran Ronald Flanagan found out his COBRA insurance had been canceled because of a mere two pennies -- just as he was about to undergo a potentially life-saving stem cell transplant to treat his multiple myeloma. Though Flanagan's treatment seems to have been legal, under the rules of...

Lots of folks have reached retirement by surprise, thanks to the Great Recession. So, if you're scrambling to come up with a Plan B and plug the financial gap created by an unexpectedly early end to your career, here are some good ideas.

For every job opening, the federal government says there are five applicants. Since the government notoriously under-counts the number of un- and under-employed in this country, let's correct that to something closer to reality: For every job opening, there is an avalanche of applicants.

A record one in six Americans is on Medicaid, the government's health program for the poor. And Medicaid is just one of several government anti-poverty programs that have seen large increases in caseloads -- and costs.

Most people rush to schedule as many medical tests as possible just before their COBRA coverage runs out. But some experts now say that's precisely the wrong thing to do when you're shopping for post-COBRA health insurance. The problem with those medical tests is that they just might find something...

A battle in the U.S. Senate over the nation's deficit and taxes is increasingly leaving the country's jobless as its biggest victim. Congress ended the week with no action to extend unemployment benefits in 2010. According to the National Employment Law Project, 900,000 people have already lost...

Young adults just out of college may be assuming they'll stay on their parents' employer-provided health plan until age 26, thanks to the new health care reform law. But employers don't have to provide that coverage immediately.

For millions of unemployed Americans, access to the temporary health insurance program known as COBRA is running out -- despite several extensions by the U.S. government. Finding health insurance to replace COBRA is an uphill battle for many with pre-existing medical conditions -- even when cost...