HEALTH INSURANCE If you get fired, your company is required, thanks to a law known as Cobra, to allow you to pay to keep your health insurance, generally for up to 18 months.

The problem is, it can cost you $1,000 a month or more to keep the coverage.

Now, the federal government will subsidize 65 percent of the premium for up to nine months. To be eligible, you need to have been forced out of your job between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009. Also, your income in the year you receive the subsidy cannot be more than $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for married couples filing their taxes jointly.

If you lost your job after Sept. 1, 2008, and declined Cobra coverage, you’ll now get another chance. Call your former company in the next two months to find out how this will work.

You need not keep an eye on the mail for a subsidy check from the government, according Kathryn Bakich, senior vice president in Washington of the Segal Company, a benefits consulting firm. Instead, your former employer will collect the money from the government.

SOCIAL SECURITY In 2009 a number of retirees and disabled people, including Social Security recipients, will receive a $250 refundable tax credit. The money would arrive within 120 days of the bill’s signing.

CAR BUYER TAX DEDUCTION For the rest of 2009, you’ll be able to deduct the state and local sales and excise taxes you pay on the purchase of a new (not used) car, light truck, recreational vehicle or motorcycle.

This will be an “above-the-line deduction,” according to Clint Stretch, the managing principal of tax policy at Deloitte L.L.C. in Washington. That means that you can take it regardless of whether you itemize other deductions on your tax return.