Involuntarily Screwed
The law is so tailor-made to my situation, it could’ve been named after me. It’s not—it’s actually one portion of the American Rescue Plan Act, and for the purposes of this essay, I’ll be referring to it simply as ARPA—but it might as well be called the Mark Anderson COBRA Subsidy Act of 2021. That right there will give you an idea why it’s so infuriating to me that this law, designed to ease the distress of Americans like me who’ve lost work, income, and health benefits due to the pandemic, is not, in fact, doing what it’s supposed to, and paying my COBRA for the five months I’m between employer-provided insurance plans. I’m an elementary school music teacher. That means that, throughout my career, I’ve always been on the brink of losing my job. As a “specials” teacher, I’ve always been among the last to be hired and the first to be laid off in a budget cut. When this happened in 2009, during the recession that was triggered by mortgage profiteering, it took me two years to get ba