Group Health Insurance for Freelancers?

Thank you Janis for your input. Are you going to get Nick to sign up for Biznik as there are a number of qualified health insurance brokers already here ready to assist and educate the Biznik members. It never hurts to have several opinions of which I consistently help and specialize in the small business and sole proprietorships. In addition to helping with your health insurance, your designated broker should also talk to you about a waiver of premium program for your health insurance plan to guarantee it doesn't expire. Here is hoping everyone keeps good health.

If not earlier, now I bet he will. At least a couple of us in our chapter do belong to Biznik.

Rob, I found this website that may help you.

https://www.enrollment123.com/efactor

Coverage may not be available in all states so check availability.

Cheers,

Bobby

Thanks Bobby for sharing this with others, however, I need to caution folks who may choose to go this direction just due to low premiums. Case in point, one was providing family coverage almost identical to the one advertised on this site for only $299 a month, here in WA. It turned out not to be monitored by the Insurance Commissioner and a number of people that purchased this coverage found it it didn't pay very well. One person incurrred over $200,000 in out of pocket expenses the insurance didn't cover. Be sure and research the program on how it covers conditions before you need the coverage. This is where a good health insurance broker can help greatly. In most all cases, it doesn't cos any extra to use a broker to research for you and help you sign up.

I would highly recommend talking to Ron! He recently spoke at networking breakfast at the particular Chamber I belong to. Don't give up hope finding good insurance until you have talked to Ron!

Great topic...

At the risk of pimping my own modest efforts, may I point to my recent post about a demonstration advocating single-payer health care "Shake it up for Single Payer!" tomorrow noon. Just think how none of us would be stressing out if our country utilized this system.

Funny! I see 30 replies to this post, but zero on my post. Is mentioning political action a faux pas on Biznik? My bad...

I plan to participate, have fun wearing a gaudy ensemble, and who knows - maybe get a mention on the news for a few seconds, calling attention to this issue.

http://citizen-artiste.org/events/2009/shakeitup.htm

Thanks Janis for the compliment and vote of confidence. I am here to help. Dina, single payer health insurance is the wrong answer to the health care problem. If it is so good, why do so many Canadians come to Seattle for surgeries and other medical treatments. It is also well known some folks up there have actually died waiting for their surgeries. There is a proposal we will be voting on in WA come November that may help if the state can figure out how to pay for their share. More to come.....................

I think it's like so many things. A solution usually comes from the angle of give and take from what is established and new suggestions being offered. I think the large corporate, for-profit structure that has taken over in the last 25-30 years has done its fair share to muddy the waters along with the FDA. There's too much profit in not finding cures and too much money to be made in treating diseases. I think that if health insurance wasn't tied to an employer (why so many people stay with corporate and government jobs) that there would be a mass exodus and an enormous surge of entrepreneurs finally doing what they love to do. It will be interesting to see what happens, hopefully sooner than later. My 25-year-old nephew was diagnosed with colon cancer and who knows what he faces in the future as far as treatments for himself and taking care of his family since he's not able to work. I don't like to see people die just because they couldn't get insurance. If we're all paying for it one way or another, there has to be a way for everyone to be covered. I have confidence that it will all be figured out. There's finally the will to get something done.

With all due respect, Ron, when you limited your comments to the matter of finding adequate medical coverage in our present system, I was with you. When you made your comments about single payer health insurance, you lost me. You lost me because you went from practical advice to political opinion.

As a person who has worked in both the insurance industry and in the federal government, I have to say that the government couldn't possibly do any worse than the highly profitable insurance industry in underwriting the expense of medical coverage in the US.

One government, at least nominally accountable to the voters, versus many insurance companies accountable to their shareholders before their insureds' health? No contest, IMHO.

When what you are doing doesn't work, do anything else. Health coverage doesn't work, as its set up in the US. It's past due time to radically reform our system.

Our health care system is a wreck, not because people don't exercise and eat good food. It's because of the variety of profit motivated practices, that ignore all other values, of most of the players in the system. It's because of the predominate importance of short term payoffs to shareholders and highly paid insurance industry executives. It's profiteering by drug companies who advertise to increase demand by consumers. It's a whole lot of things that might be controlled by a government agency looking out for citizens interests.

I also have to challenge your use of Canada as an example of how the single payer (read government) system doesn't work. I have too many Canadian relatives and friends to accept your criticism of their system.

Please help Bizniks navigate the current system in their efforts to find health insurance that actually insures at reasonable premiums. That would be a great service to the membership.

Thank you.

John, Well said!! - better than I could. That is why I feel strongly about reform, all the reasons you stated. THANK YOU.

Dina Lydia

So, I looked into this recently and in the State of Washington we are pretty limited by the state government. We can't pool up and be a big group. I spoke with my health insurance broker and she recommended Primera. So for a family of three I spend about $700.00 per month. Our cobra option was about $1,400.00 per month. I don't know if their's something better then Primera out there but I didn't have many choices because of Washington State law. Art T.

You are right Arthur, there isn't many choices in WA due to government regulations. In addition, the government mandates on both individual and group plans has increased the costs of programs. Case in point, it mandatory that maternity be included on all group insurance plans, regardless of gender and age. A group of single males, all over 50 have maternity benefits because Olympia says so. These comments could be called political, but in reality, they are fact. Now, on an individual basis, the following carriers are available in WA, Regence Blue Shield, Lifewise Health Plan of WA, KPS Health Plans and Group Health. Many of my clients are attracted to the Regence Breakthru 70 plan and the Lifewise and Regence Health Savings Accounts. Two options I would recommend you discuss with your broker if you haven't already.

On another issue, as I mentioned previously, in the upcoming election process, Mike Kreidler our insurance commissioner is submitting a proposal for health insurance with a $10,000 deductible. The State of WA will provide coverage for everyone with this deductible. It will be the consumer's responsibility to cover the first $10,000. On the surface this is a great option for the citizens of WA and several of the carriers are getting ready for this. The big concern is how will the state pay for all the citizens coverage, what is the limit of coverage and do all the mandates apply. I think many of these questions will be answered soon.

I have been following the posts on this topic. Everywhere I go and I do business in many states everyone things that if they can come together as a big group they will save huge on health insurance premiums. This simply is not true. If you are a small employer in the state of Washington and employee 2-50 staff you are all grouped together in one community pool rating for each carrier. That is roughly about 30-40,000 people are better and there is no single group underwriting. the claims exp is spread over the community pool. Think the government can do it better? ever take a look at workers comp rates in WA? These rates for a lack of better words suck. Go to a state where these plans are put out to bid with insurance carriers and the rates go right down. If the government really could do it better why do they hord all that workers comp money and continue to jack the rates. Medicare is a single payor socialized government program that pays the doc's about $.30 on the dollar billed. that's 30 cents and no doc wants to take them because there is no money in it. It costs the government about $1000+ per person per month to provide this medicare system even paying these poverty rates. so they jumped on the medavantage plans for seniors because they (government) pay the insurance company $794.00 per head per month and you pay about $194.00 on top of that. If the government knew how to manage it better why would they take this insurance company managed medicare advantage plan? The problem is that we as americans are unhealthly and many do not want to take responsibilty for themselves and their own actions, not anyone who visits this site, but there are a great deal of people out there who are users of the system. Until the gross abuse of the systems are handled the people who do take care of themselves will always pay for those who do not. no matter who is running the show. One more quick note. If the government could manage funds better why would a politician raise 4 million dollars in one night of fund raising for his/her campaign and it be gone before the weekend?

Mr. Anderson,

You are comparing apples and oranges. The actions and effects of government involvement in a hybrid system like we have now cannot be compared to a clean, single-payer system.

As I said before, the current system is totally inadequate and a huge waste of money from the point of view of people needing health care. Most people agree that the current system is a failure.

The current government involvement in health insurance is a symptom of the screwed up current system, in which insurance companies go for the profits and government fails in its efforts to make up for the inability of the insurance industry to provide the service the public needs. The government can't fix a basically flawed system with band-aids. The whole thing needs to be tossed and a more rational system needs to be created from scratch.

Each health insurance company creates a separate bureaucracy having the sole purpose of providing dividends to shareholders and large comp packages to corporate execs. This is better than a single bureaucracy, accountable to the voters and focused on providing medical care for people who need it? I don’t think so.

In case you or anyone else reading this thread has doubts, I am a business owner and am a capitalist, with reservations. Money is good. Profits are necessary for business to succeed. The reservations have to do with the demonstrable fact that uncontrolled capitalism tends to profiteering and corruption, as demonstrated by the economic fix we are in now.

The health care systems my family and friends live with in Canada, Germany and the UK are far superior to ours. I, for one, would be happy to pay the taxes necessary to have a government run, single-payer system.

I think that movie Sicko would be enlightening to see how other countries compare to ours when it comes to health care. We're pretty sheltered here and tend to think that we're are the best at everything. Truth is, Cuba, of all places, has a lower infant mortality rate than we do. The happiest people in the world are the Danish. I used to work for an international agency (Canada and USA) and if anyone wanted to get defeated in an argument, all a person would have to do is criticize the Canadian health care system. Some people won't travel to the United States without first taking out a health insurance policy in the United States. We on the other hand could get sick, have surgery in England and we wouldn't have to pay anything.

Just To add a little humor to this depressing chain: top nine indicators that your cheaper health insurance is a single payor plan: 9. Your annual breast exam is done at Hooters 8. Directions to your doctor's office include "Take a left when you enter the trailer park 7. The tongue depressors taste faintly of fudgesicles 6. The only proctologist in the plan is Gus from Roto Rooter 5. The only item listed under Preventive Care is an apple a day 4. Your primary care physician is wearing the pants you gave to Goodwill last month 3. The patient is responsible for 200% of out of country charges 2. the only expense covered 100% is embalming 1. Your prozac comes in different colors with little M's on them. I hope this made some of you smile a little over the health insurance matters. Keep in mind we may have a single payor plan coming to WA when it is submitted to us voters and it does look pretty good.

If the above comments represent your best argument, I can comfortably rest my case.

But, back to Mr. Nachbar's question. His original question wasn't political; it was practical. However, we got sidetracked when politics entered into a discussion around the original question. (If you introduce politics, you will get a political response from those of us unwilling to ignore such comments.)

If I read the thread correctly, the insurance industry has no answer to the question.

Someone please correct me, if I'm wrong.

Mr. Hays, your statement is true regarding us getting off track on the political side and we are doing no one any good by doing so. As for answering Mr. Nachbar's question I believe that was done in the very first thread.

As a newly-minted free agent (read: I recently got laid off), I slogged through this entire thread to get some information regarding my insurance options. After making my way through, I ended up calling Biznik member, Beth Cosker and she answered all of my questions in the course of about 10 minutes. So I second Karrie's recommendation above to contact one of our own to talk about your individual needs.

Sandi, I am very happy you were able to get the help you needed from Beth. She is very competent as I understand. Most importantly you were able to get the help and information you needed.