An end to job-based coverage could set journalists -- and many others -- free

"I am scheduled to begin dying Feb. 1." That's the opening of a gripping op-ed column that ran Wednesday in the St. Petersburg Times by journalist Robert Steinback of Miami. Steinback, an insulin-dependent diabetic, was laid off from the Miami Herald 17 months ago and will lose his health coverage at the end of January, when his COBRA subsidy ends.

I know of several other laid-off journalists -- and early retirees whose coverage is being unexpectedly killed by the Times -- who are in a scramble to find coverage before they're in the same boat.
 
Given that context, I found an interesting idea in a column by Robert Niles of Online Journalism Review. Entitled "What should the government do to help journalism?" the column offers two suggestions: 1) changing tax structure to make media companies more willing to invest for the long-term; and 2) disconnecting health coverage from the employer setting.
 
The latter idea would help people like Steinback and my friends. In fact, it would help me, too. When I left newspaper journalism, I wandered into COBRA land, a scary place. 

Niles says too many journalists who could be starting entrepreneurial ventures to keep solid reporting alive in an online format are instead clinging to a traditional-media job solely because it's a lifeline to health insurance. I know a good many of those folks; he's absolutely right.
 
People in many types of industries are in job-lock, too; that's been a problem for years. The reason it's bubbling up as a protest now is that the health-insurance crunch is happening to people who know how to write and get published.

--Carol Gentry, Editor, can be reached at 727-410-3266 or by e-mail.