Comments on: Do Health Insurance and Self-employment Mix?

By: WWD’s 2009 in Review, Part 2

WWD’s 2009 in Review, Part 2 — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:02:26 +0000

[...] weighed in on the growing health care debate, looking at whether health insurance and self-employment can mix. After all the buzz, Google Wave finally started to roll out to a limited number of users, and [...]

By: The Hard Truth: A Realist Take on Freelancing

The Hard Truth: A Realist Take on Freelancing — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:01:35 +0000

[...] to that the fact that health insurance is pretty much up to you, and you can see how what seems like a sizable income can quickly become a subsistence wage. Factor [...]

By: stock investment newsletter

stock investment newsletter — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:32:27 +0000

I have been hanging out in the self-employment zone for over 20 years. I have at least 10 employees so we get a group benefit. My profit zone comes at a cost. I would rather have them insured, and nothing happens than not and everything happens.

My cousin ran a typing service for years, and had to give it up when she got divorced as she needed health and dental insurance.

As she is now one of our unemployed family members that typing service is standing her in good stead. When her employer asked her if she wanted to continue her health insurance, she had to turn them down it was $500 a month. This was for a healthy person with zero problems, when she checked out insurance policies they were running $110 a month, but it had $5000 deductible attached to it.

It is a no win situation for her, meet the mortgage payments, feed the children or get health insurance ugly choices all.

By: Health Insurance Guru

Health Insurance Guru — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:19:53 +0000

Everybody should be able to get health insurance. It is so important to be covered.

By: Greg C

Greg C — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:52:06 +0000

I lost my job in January and COBRA just didn’t seem like a viable option. “Luckily” my wife still works and I was able to get on her plan. I think a major part of the problem, as explained very well in this essay by Milton Friedman http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3459466.html, is the third-party payment system that so many of us have become dependent upon that has arisen through employer sponsored health insurance and the insurance companies. We need to get health insurance back in control of the consumer and have the doctors working for the patients again, not the insurers.

By: Larry K

Larry K — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:49:48 +0000

Running a small consulting services business I had to deal with this issue. In New York State I found that I could get the same group rates as other employers through my payroll services company. That was a huge relief so I was able to afford to keep my insurance even when the business went bad. Sure I had to keep the payroll service but that cost very little compared to the difference between group rates and individual rates.
As to the fuss in the US — lots of people are simply afraid of change and are wary of even bigger government. They fail to grasp that our current system as it is proceeding will cause an increasing percentage of us to be uninsured. I hope we do not have to wait until 50% of us are uninsured to make the necessary changes.
Even with my insurance (with significant employer contributions) I am worried about financial disaster. The only policy that I can afford only offers $1,000 per year (per person) maximum perscription coverage. That’s usually enough or close but a major illness would quickly exhaust that limit. Unless you have great credit and/or significant savings one major illness would put you in the spot of not being able to get the medicine you need.

By: Henk

Henk — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:21:49 +0000

Living in Europe (the Netherlands) I really do not understand how you manage in the US with this system… And when someone tries to change it he is called a liar by someone of your political elite(!) Someone is making a lot of money that he can unleash such an attack.

You cannot change this in a one man one vote system. This will allow a majority of 80% to deny access to standard health care for the other 20%.

It is incredible that healthcare is in control by financial institutions, I mean insurance companies. They are proven to be irresponsible and not thrustworthy the last years. And you (and I have to admit, over here it is going the same way) have given them the power to decide over life and death… In a way, you got what you asked for.

By: Wayne Freeman

Wayne Freeman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:03:51 +0000

I stand by my assessment of a health insurance bureaucrat’s job. It is a fact that health insurance claim handlers are incentivized to deny claims aggressively, often legitimately but also randomly and capriciously, counting on some percentage of claimants not having the ability, will, or energy to fight the ruling.

In my book, this is being paid for not doing your job.

This is not the case for claim handling for other forms of insurance.

By: Kelvin

Kelvin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:27:11 +0000

Claiming that a health insurance bureaucrat’s job is “to fail to perform the same service” is every bit as ideological a statement as a knee-jerk antagonism to government bureaucrats. Big organizations can be hard to work with whether they are for-profit, non-profit, or government. But if the government is in control, there’s rarely an option to go elsewhere if you’re unhappy with the service.

Insurance companies try to hold down costs because they’re in a competitive market selling the insurance. The problem is that those paying the bills (mostly employers) aren’t generally the ones who are hurt when the costs are squeezed excessively. Again, the incentives are skewed. We’d be better off if insurance were individual (not tied to your job), and only dealt with the type of major expenses it’s not reasonable to expect people to budget for. The challenge is how to get there from here.

By: Wayne Freeman

Wayne Freeman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:46:23 +0000

The ubiquitous sentiment about imposing government bureaucracy on a system that works completely befuddles me. I have never encountered a government bureaucracy anywhere, regarding anything, that has not been more consistent, fair, accessible, compassionate and (dare I say it) efficient, than any health insurance bureaucracy that I have encountered.

I simply don’t know why anyone wouldn’t prefer dealing with a government bureaucrat whose job it is to perform a service, even inefficiently, over a health insurance bureaucrat whose job it is to fail to perform the same service.

I’m self-employed. I pay so much for health insurance that we can’t go to the doctor or dentist. In the event of any medical problem even somewhat major, just satisfying the deductible will bankrupt us. My wife has a chronic non-life-threatening condition that would be improved by consistent medical treatment, but we are limited to mitigating the symptoms with prescription drugs that we pay for out-of-pocket.

I feel like I’m buying fire insurance on somebody else’s house.

This system doesn’t work.