It looks like the cost of buying health insurance is too big for unemployed Americans. This consumes 30 to 84 percent of standard unemployment benefits, according to a new report released yesterday. Because a very small number of people afford to do this, the result is a growing number of people being hit with the double whammy of no job and no health coverage.

In 1985, the Congress decided that unemployed Americans can extend their employer-based health insurance for up to 18 months. However, under the program, known as COBRA, the individual must pay 102 percent of the policy's full cost. Therefore, for the vast majority of workers who are laid off, they and their families are likely to join the ranks of the uninsured.

In the District, Maryland and Virginia, the price of a standard COBRA family plan is three-fourths of the average unemployment check. The employment and the health insurance are often intertwined. For every 1 percentage point rise in unemployment, the number of uninsured Americans climbs by 1.1 percent, according to a recent analysis.

An alternative for the this situation would be to save the individual money and save taxpayer money. The US unemployment rate hit 7.2 percent last month, the highest in the last 16 years. The millions of people who have become unemployed since the US recession began in 2007 would be struggling to keep their health insurance. Most Americans, 160 million, get their health insurance coverage via employers. However, another 46 million have no health insurance and the rest are covered by government insurance.