Insurers: Short-term health plans on rise - Phoenix Business Journal:

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In fact, sales of individual policies, both short term or are both up over 30 percent from the same periodflast year, which was a record salezs year for the insurance company, said Margaret Jarvis, a spokeswomanh for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of An increased interest in individual particularly for short-term plans for those who need temporaru coverage between jobs, can be seen in the receng launches of more short-term individual plans by majo r insurance companies. For instance, UnitedHealthcare’s subsidiary recently introduced two new short term healthb insurance plans in Texas that offert coverage from one to12 months.
They are designer specifically for those who cannot affordor aren’t eligiblwe for Cobra in the troubled economy. Cobra is a federallt mandated program in which workers who lose their jobs have the righft to maintain their health insurance plan at their companuy for a set period of The idea behind Cobra is to make sure aworketr doesn't have a lapse in health insurance whiler in between jobs. The time that someone coulsd be on Cobra was recently extendedd through thefederal government'xs stimulus bill, and premiums for laid off workerse were also reduced.
said it launched a simila short term insurance product called HumanaOnr in April that is bein g offeredin Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio and The need for thesew types of temporary plans are have become greatef in the current recession, Golden Rule CEO Richard Collinsw said.