"The state was giving 100 percent subsidies to the movie industry," he recalled.

While it would be helpful, she is not sure that even a 65 percent subsidy is enough to make Cobra affordable.

By 2002, lenders had devised ways to inflate the volume of loans for which they received the 9.5 percent subsidies.

So early retirees who lost the typical 60 percent subsidy would face added costs of more than $500 a month.

"The 2 percent subsidy will continue," he said in a telephone interview.

The Blues complain that the 3.5 percent subsidy they now get for supposedly being the insurer of last resort is not enough.

But a mandatory 50 percent subsidy paid by all drivers outside the plan hides the real extent of the plan's loss experience.

For example, the government offers a 50 percent subsidy on fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides.

The law removed what had been in effect a 30 percent subsidy of the hospital bills of individual Blue Cross customers.

A little-noticed provision of the giant highway bill Congress passed last year allows for 80 percent subsidies to state departments that use salt substitutes.