Group Medical Insurance For Contract Programmers? 13
metasim asks: "I'm in the process of starting my own business and working for myself as a consultant/contract programmer in the U.S. Ironically, my major stumbling block in getting this business started is not finding paying clients, but finding affordable health insurance. Is there a *group* medical insurance plan available to contract programmers, either through membership in some association or through some other affiliation? I have a 'pre-existing condition', that although minor, causes individual/family insurance providers to jack up the prices or to not consider me at all."
NH Small Business pools (Score:1)
Have you tried ACM or IEEE? (Score:1)
Check with your Chamber of C (Score:1)
I work with my local chamber of commerce, and one of the "member benefits [aurorachamber.com]" is the ability to participate in the purchase of things like medical insurance as part of the group. For a one-person consulting business membership is usually pretty cheap, and it may well be worth it if you are trying to insure a family.
Chamber of Commerce/Board of Trade (Score:1)
Re:Same Here (Score:1)
Look into this if your circumstances would indicate that they're just looking at a height/weight chart (if I took myself down to the 180 pounds indicated on one of those my doctor assured me I'd be dead).
We need a new model (Score:1)
Re:This is the main reason I think we need a Guild (Score:1)
Same Here (Score:1)
To the moon!
http://www.beefjerky.com
This is the main reason I think we need a Guild (Score:2)
I think currently you are SOL.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Same Here (Score:2)
That's not so bad. Think about it. (Score:2)
Best bet would be to take the insurance company up on the best insurance they have to offer (from your point of view) and pay the extra, consider it as working one day for benefits. Or, possibly, also consider pre-paid legal along with the medical. This really takes the strain off when something comes to grief with the medical insurance company. Just make sure they know it.
Let's see, one day for benefits, three days for mortgage, one day for the car, eight days for taxes...8(
Check out IEEE (Score:3)
I have their life insurance (New York Life is the real company behind the IEEE offer) that came in at less than 1/3 the cost of any open market policy I could find. I looked at their health insurance and it seemed reasonable to me at the time, but I didn't need it as my current employeer has an ok plan.
Check out the details for the IEEE health plan [ieeeinsurance.com] for yourself. I see that you must have been a member for at least 2 years, which means it doesn't help you much if your aren't already a member.
Consider a Medical Savings Account (Score:4)
Hi!
In addition to traditional fee-for-service health insurance, you may want to look into a Medical Savings Account. There are substantial advantages to an MSA for people who are self-employed--chief among them that you are paying for your health coverage with pre-tax dollars, but also you are able to keep a significant portion of what you pay.
Here's how it works: a Medical Savings Account consists of two parts:
You pay a relatively low premium for the insurance policy, and you pay a monthly "contribution" into your investment account. Major expenses are paid (after the deductible) by the insurance policy--but the minor expenses, routine medical care, etc. are paid from the investment account.
As I mentioned above, the advantages for somebody who is self-employed (or who works for a small company) are substantial:
The down side of having an MSA is that you can find yourself being taken advantage of by doctors--because they are used to overbilling and then just taking what the insurance company pays. Since you don't have Blue Cross/Blue Shield to say, "the reasonable and customary amount is $48, so that's all we're paying" you can occasionally get popped for a $250 visit to the doctor where the family behind you with traditional insurance pays a fraction of that. Most of the time you can negotiate--but every now and again you'll stumble across a jerk who gets greedy.
To find out more, check out Golden Rule Insurance Company [www.golden...argetblank] or the Internal Revenue Service publication 969 [irs.gov].