8 ms·

I've got a stupid question. When people quit their job and go solo like this, what do they do about health insurance? Do they just forgo it since their young

by pmorici 16y ago

I've got a stupid question. When people quit their job and go solo like this, what do they do about health insurance? Do they just forgo it since their young and it's unlikely they will need it or are there affordable plans you can get when you don't have insurance through your employer? I've looked around the Internet but can only find vague information on the topic. For example this http://www.ahipresearch.org/pdfs/2009IndividualMarketSurveyFinalReport.pdf http://www.ahipresearch.org/pdfs/2009IndividualMarketSurveyF... document seems to indicate that someone in their late 20's would pay just under $2,000 on "average" but the numbers seem to range wildly with location and some family plans going as high as 13k per year which seems ridiculous. Edit: This thread though it contains helpful responses confirms my suspicion that getting non employer health coverage is a complete CF.

SMrF 16y ago
The last startup I did my cofounder did not have a job. (I still kept my job to help fund things). If I recall correctly he was able to get "oh shit, I have cancer" insurance for somewhere around $100/month. I think his deductible was $5,000 or some nonsense. As a young guy I think this is a fairly reasonable amount of risk to take on. Although this would be basically impossible if you had some sort of preexisting condition. Unless you live in Europe or somewhere with universal healthcare.
- nikster 16y ago
  I want to know about this insurance - that's exactly what I need. I am not one to needlessly run to the hospital - in fact I avoid it as much as I can - but I would like insurance in case I have a bad accident and need surgery etc. The only plans I found were "free pills, and 10k max coverage" or something ridiculous like that. I need the opposite.
  - joubert 16y ago
    Check out plans with hospital/catastrophe cover. Blue Cross, Aetna, etc. have such plans. Also check out http://www.healthcare.gov/index.html http://www.healthcare.gov/index.html
  - tmarthal 16y ago
    I signed up for something similar (I haven't actually used it yet however) from http://ehealthinsurance.com http://ehealthinsurance.com The site domain sounds like a spam dump, but their signup system is nice. You pick your policy plan online and then a representative calls you to confirm and interview you before signing you up and sending you the policy packet. I was paying $198/month for my COBRA plan, but am now paying for $115/month for a high-deductible plan.
- ido 16y ago
  Unless you live in Europe or somewhere with universal healthcare. I.e. everywhere except the United States and 3rd world countries?
  - ylem 16y ago
    Malaysia provides subsidized health care for it's citizens.
    - ido 16y ago
      OK, some third world countries.
- chrisbennet 16y ago
  The trouble with the "oh st I have cancer" insurance that only costs $100/mo with $5000 deductible is that it is for 6 mo at a time and then you get another policy for another 6 mo. When you try to collect on anything big, they recind the insurance retroactively (for some reason) or say it is a pre-existing condition. BTDT. Examples: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Health/story?id=7911195&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Health/story?id=7911195&p... http://law.freeadvice.com/insurance_law/insurers_bad_faith/fortis-assurant-health-insurance-bad-faith.htm http://law.freeadvice.com/insurance_law/insurers_bad_faith/f...
  - tptacek 16y ago
    This is a tricky point. I don't think you're always right. There are two different factors† you're bringing up: high vs. low deductable insurance and short-term health insurance. High- vs. low- deductable isn't a charged issue. Only slightly oversimplified: For high-deductable plans, you end up paying for doctor visits and basic meds out of pocket; for low-deductable insurance, you're basically paying a higher monthly fee to treat your medical care like a utility bill, and paying only copays for services. Most people have low-deductable plans (most company plans are low-deductable). Especially if you're young, low-deductable plans are kind of a rip-off. You can cut your payments in half with a high-deductable plan and use the difference to fund an HSA and thus not pay a huge premium for a health insurer to manage your money for you. Short-term health insurance on the other hand is a bad idea. The reason you pay insurance is to manage the risk that something terrible will happen. Of the major medical events that can bankrupt you (in other words, "of the major medical events"), most can easily take several months to resolve. Not only does this expose you to huge fees when your insurance lapses and you (obviously) don't get re-insured, but you can also be assured of never getting private insurance again. Don't buy short-term health insurance. † Recission is an unrelated issue that affects all health insurance plans; no matter who you buy insurance from, if they can claim there was something you could have disclosed to them but didn't that would have allowed them to predict a medical event and no law prevents them from doing so, they will attempt to withdraw coverage.
JeffJenkins 16y ago
For the first 18 months, COBRA is available to keep getting the same coverage. Beyond that there are non-employer pools you can sign up for, and also organizations like the Freelancer's Union. You should definitely be expecting to pay a lot of money, though. Because employer-provided health insurance is tax-deductible the overall cost that you and your employer pay is lower, so you'll get either lower prices or higher quality.
- MediaBehavior 16y ago
  COBRA applies if you are laid off - not if you quit. (IIRC)
  - chrisconley 16y ago
    It might not be for every company, but my wife quit her job last year and we were able to get COBRA.
    - MediaBehavior 16y ago
      My bad: I thought COBRA was dependent on eligibility for the whole unemployment process.
  - santry 16y ago
    Not true. I quit my last job and was on COBRA.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Totally false.
tptacek 16y ago
Not a stupid question. Most people COBRA. COBRA is expensive but, like a group plan, automatically accepts you. Since the overwhelming vast majority of indie startups fail, COBRA usually lasts long enough to bridge you to your next job. After about a year or so, if you're not certain you're going to end up with a full-time job, you need to look for real insurance. COBRA will last for almost another year, but when it ends it ends, and god help you if you're hit by a car or diagnosed with something nasty towards the end of your COBRA coverage (nobody will insure you). Coverage from the majors costs roughly $400/mo. It gets much cheaper if you choose a high-deductable plan (you should), in which case you pay for all your health care out of pocket. A family of four can expect to pay over $10k/yr for low-deductable insurance, which is what virtually all companies offer. Now, choose your own adventure: Are you ~22 years old, male, with no dependents, with no long-term health issues and no prior history of hospitalization for illness? You can easily buy high-deductable insurance on the open market. There are several websites that will sell it to you. Otherwise: you may be screwed. If you don't qualify for a group plan of some sort (which is how most Americans obtain health coverage), you may find that you are uninsurable. For instance, in the first year of Matasano, we tried to get private insurance and found that both my daughter and my wife were uninsurable. My daughter had been hospitalized for a freak seizure when she was 4. Erin has a functioning female reproductive system. NO COVERAGE. Not, "we won't cover the things we don't like". No, NO COVERAGE. Every insurer. The list of conditions with "deny coverage" attached to them, which most insurers publish, includes a wide variety of conditions experienced by tens of millions of people. Good luck!
- unwind 16y ago
  For non-US readers (like myself), COBRA is probably a reference to Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Rec...). This seems to be a law that (among other things) gives employees a right to keep health insurance coverage after leaving employment.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    For a limited period of time, they have the right to purchase health coverage at their employer's cost, which is invariably higher than what the employees themselves Were accustomed to paying.
midnightmonster 16y ago
We had cobra through my wife's former job. As others have noted, you can get cobra even if quit on your own. Thankfully, the old job was in Maryland, where state law requires insurance companies to offer a continuation policy after cobra expires. It continues as long as you want it and make your payments, and they have offer you a similar policy in the state you move to if you leave Maryland. We pay almost $1000/month for my wife and the kids to be covered. I have no health insurance at all. Because the policy is in my wife's name, it doesn't qualify as a sole proprietor business expense. (If it were in my name, it would count as a business expense as of 2010, even though it's not bought through the business.) Because of preexisting conditions, we can only get private insurance that excludes most of the things likely to go wrong with my wife and kids. We're now in Florida where the state offers an HMO for children in low income families, but you can buy into it at full price if you don't qualify income-wise. Since the pricing is per-child not per-family, and our fourth is due in June, and we don't qualify for the discounts, the HMO isn't a useful option for us right now. (The 'and children' part of our current insurance is a comparatively small expense.)
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  For a number of couples I know, one is self-employed or in a small business, while the other works for an organization that provides group insurance. Whether Big Co., the school system, some other aspect of government. Often, the principal reason for the spouse's employment is the health care benefit. (For example, being a teacher's aid pays fairly little, but you get relatively quite good health care coverage.) EDIT: s/principle/principal/ #morning fog
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Before Matasano got group coverage in '06, that's how we handled it; Erin took a job in a school system. Erin works with us now, which is a much better state of affairs.
joubert 16y ago
Consider a hospital plan.
angstrom 16y ago
It depends on your situation (age, health, dependents). Last startup I worked at did a high deductible health insurance and subsidized it with a $2000 Health Savings Account (deposits made with each paycheck on your behalf with pretax dollars). Done this way the HSA is like an FSA, but better. The HSA carries over from year to year, the FSA doesn't. If you had a big expense before the $2000 was fully deposited it could be lent by the company and paid back from paychecks. Since the company was already putting this in really what it what meant is that if you left the company before it was recovered from paychecks it would be deducted from the last paycheck. I don't remember the prescription coverage, but from what others said it wasn't bad. Some examples of the coverage: Founder's son had a lung collapse and spent days in the hospital, but only paid 4K out of the HSA. Co-worker had a preemie that spent a month in the hospital before they could take him home. Once again, $4K out of the HSA. High deductible covered the rest. Another co-worker with a long term illness had $400/mo in prescription meds they needed. Covered. Needless to say, they upped our rates the following year... As they say, YMMV.
- tptacek 16y ago
  HSA's are a good thing, but when your COBRA plan expires, no matter how much you've banked in your HSA, they don't matter: a collapsed lung, complicated childbirth, or long-term illness will bankrupt you.
  - angstrom 16y ago
    That's something that should be better normalized. Unfortunately, it varies sometimes based on the state and whether that coverage is required to be extended, but under a different plan. I still think a single-payer system would be best for the economy overall. Decoupling healthcare coverage from employers should free up the market for people to switch jobs and take some risks that might otherwise be unthinkable. If the only thing keeping people working for a company is the healthcare, then maybe that company's practices actually have a negative net impact on the economy even though the balance sheets are in the black. Productivity, stress, and morale may actually be improved by a company with better work-life balance. It's worth considering the side-effects the structure of our society has beyond the highly visible numbers.
kgrin 16y ago
If you live in Massachusetts, it's easy: http://www.mahealthconnector.org http://www.mahealthconnector.org (unsubsidized but group-rate health insurance)
haberman 16y ago
If you squint really hard, universal health care could be seen as pro-entrepreneurship, since it does away with this large barrier to working for a fledgeling company.
- me2i81 16y ago
  You don't really have to squint very hard at all. Unless you have more than 10 or so employees it's almost impossible to get a group health plan. Young people don't worry about this as much as perhaps they should, but once you get to the age where most people you know have families, it becomes a huge barrier to starting a company.
- tptacek 16y ago
  You don't have to squint even a little bit to see that. Almost any reasonable guaranteed issue health insurance plan would drastically assist entrepreneurship. I say this every time this issue comes up on HN: in the first couple years of Matasano, one of the top 3 reasons candidates declined to work with us was health insurance. There's even a term for this among the muggles in the mainstream media: "job-lock". It's very real. If you have a family, job lock is one of the major things keeping you from starting a company, or become a freelancer (a good first step towards entrepreneurship).
  - jcr 16y ago
    As mentioned "Job Lock" is a very real problem, but it's not as bad as "Provider Lock" --being permanently locked into a particular insurance and/or healthcare provider due to a pre-existing condition. In other words, if you somehow lost your insurance, no one else would insure you. Being locked into a health provider can be devastating in a number of different ways.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      I'm not sure those are even different issues; if you get seriously ill while on your BigCo Kaiser plan, you're stuck at BigCo; even Kaiser isn't going to cover you if you switch jobs (and thus plans).
jdminhbg 16y ago
If you're healthy and single it's pretty easy. You just need a high-deductible plan for emergencies, which I found to be easy to get and not unreasonably expensive in my state (PA). A friend with a pregnant wife on the other hand had a lot more trouble; presumably the potential for childbirth catastrophe throws a wrench into insurability.
awolf 16y ago
I quit my full time job last August. As a Type 1 Diabetic it's pretty important for me to not let my group coverage lapse. I'm paying $491.00 /mo for Cobra (10% more than what my employer was paying for my coverage). Because I live in California I should be eligible for Cal-COBRA which extends my coverage to 36 months total. It's expensive but worth it. Taking the plunge to go out on my own as a freelancer has been one of the best decisions of my life.
steveklabnik 16y ago
I just didn't have any.
gcb 16y ago
This point is more interesting and in the hn style than anything in the original article. Hn should have a easy way to spin comments into fp stories, as people that could probably talk a lot about health insurance can not be too interested in why some guy left google...
iki23 16y ago
Reading this thread is like having a nightmare. Here in middle of Europe, individuals pay basically $50/mo. That covers everything needed at 95% private doctors and nearly 100% hospitals ... then you only pay for optional higher standards, other optional treatment/drugs, part of the prescribed drug costs and $1.5 per any private doctor treatment. When you're employee, then insurance is paid by employer and based on a month sallary. When you are self-employed then the cost is based on yearly taxes, but generally quite low. Whem you are unemployed and registered, then the state pays the insurance.
usaar333 16y ago
While self-funding my company, I just paid for it myself. It was about $70/month (since raised to $100 after sex discrimination was banned) and with a $2900 deductible. If you are fortunate to not have any preconditions and don't have a family you need to cover, getting your own health insurance shouldn't be that hard materially. It is pricier though than rates you'd get from an employer.
pnathan 16y ago
Yes. Health insurance is not a big deal if health problems are not absurdly expensive (c.f. health care cost increase in the US).
Mz 16y ago
This might help some folks under the age of 26 but it's pretty new so wouldn't have impacted people who went out on their own until fairly recently: Under the Act, all plans and insurance issuers that offer dependent coverage must offer coverage to an enrollee’s adult children whether married or unmarried until the child reaches age 26, even if the adult child no longer lives with the parents, is not a dependent on a parent’s tax return or is no longer a student. (Plans that do not provide dependent coverage are not required to do so under the Act.) However, this extended eligibility does not apply to the adult child’s spouse or children. This expansion of eligibility is effective for plan or policy years beginning on or after September 23, 2010. Calendar year plans will have to comply as of January 1, 2011. http://dmeclegal.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/details-on-dependent-coverage-to-age-26-under-reform/ http://dmeclegal.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/details-on-depende...
gte910h 16y ago
I did an individual plan for a number of years.
rdouble 16y ago
When I was self-employed in California, I used Kaiser Permanente. I paid around $200 a month as a single 32 year old. I used the coverage for a few checkups and whatnot, and thought it was good service and value. Buying my own plan through KP was about $150/m less than COBRA. The hitch with KP is that you have to use their hospitals. However if you are in California, that shouldn't be a problem.
henryfarbles 16y ago
Here's an article about places that offer benefits to part-time employees: http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2008/12/22/companies-that-give-benefits-to-part-timers/ http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2008/12/22/companies-that-give-... Could be handy to have health insurance as well as some extra time to program.

by pmorici 16y ago

SMrF 16y ago

The last startup I did my cofounder did not have a job. (I still kept my job to help fund things). If I recall correctly he was able to get "oh shit, I have cancer" insurance for somewhere around $100/month. I think his deductible was $5,000 or some nonsense. As a young guy I think this is a fairly reasonable amount of risk to take on. Although this would be basically impossible if you had some sort of preexisting condition. Unless you live in Europe or somewhere with universal healthcare.

nikster 16y ago
I want to know about this insurance - that's exactly what I need. I am not one to needlessly run to the hospital - in fact I avoid it as much as I can - but I would like insurance in case I have a bad accident and need surgery etc. The only plans I found were "free pills, and 10k max coverage" or something ridiculous like that. I need the opposite.
- joubert 16y ago
  Check out plans with hospital/catastrophe cover. Blue Cross, Aetna, etc. have such plans. Also check out http://www.healthcare.gov/index.html http://www.healthcare.gov/index.html
- tmarthal 16y ago
  I signed up for something similar (I haven't actually used it yet however) from http://ehealthinsurance.com http://ehealthinsurance.com The site domain sounds like a spam dump, but their signup system is nice. You pick your policy plan online and then a representative calls you to confirm and interview you before signing you up and sending you the policy packet. I was paying $198/month for my COBRA plan, but am now paying for $115/month for a high-deductible plan.
ido 16y ago
Unless you live in Europe or somewhere with universal healthcare. I.e. everywhere except the United States and 3rd world countries?
- ylem 16y ago
  Malaysia provides subsidized health care for it's citizens.
  - ido 16y ago
    OK, some third world countries.
chrisbennet 16y ago
The trouble with the "oh st I have cancer" insurance that only costs $100/mo with $5000 deductible is that it is for 6 mo at a time and then you get another policy for another 6 mo. When you try to collect on anything big, they recind the insurance retroactively (for some reason) or say it is a pre-existing condition. BTDT. Examples: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Health/story?id=7911195&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Health/story?id=7911195&p... http://law.freeadvice.com/insurance_law/insurers_bad_faith/fortis-assurant-health-insurance-bad-faith.htm http://law.freeadvice.com/insurance_law/insurers_bad_faith/f...
- tptacek 16y ago
  This is a tricky point. I don't think you're always right. There are two different factors† you're bringing up: high vs. low deductable insurance and short-term health insurance. High- vs. low- deductable isn't a charged issue. Only slightly oversimplified: For high-deductable plans, you end up paying for doctor visits and basic meds out of pocket; for low-deductable insurance, you're basically paying a higher monthly fee to treat your medical care like a utility bill, and paying only copays for services. Most people have low-deductable plans (most company plans are low-deductable). Especially if you're young, low-deductable plans are kind of a rip-off. You can cut your payments in half with a high-deductable plan and use the difference to fund an HSA and thus not pay a huge premium for a health insurer to manage your money for you. Short-term health insurance on the other hand is a bad idea. The reason you pay insurance is to manage the risk that something terrible will happen. Of the major medical events that can bankrupt you (in other words, "of the major medical events"), most can easily take several months to resolve. Not only does this expose you to huge fees when your insurance lapses and you (obviously) don't get re-insured, but you can also be assured of never getting private insurance again. Don't buy short-term health insurance. † Recission is an unrelated issue that affects all health insurance plans; no matter who you buy insurance from, if they can claim there was something you could have disclosed to them but didn't that would have allowed them to predict a medical event and no law prevents them from doing so, they will attempt to withdraw coverage.

JeffJenkins 16y ago

For the first 18 months, COBRA is available to keep getting the same coverage. Beyond that there are non-employer pools you can sign up for, and also organizations like the Freelancer's Union. You should definitely be expecting to pay a lot of money, though. Because employer-provided health insurance is tax-deductible the overall cost that you and your employer pay is lower, so you'll get either lower prices or higher quality.

MediaBehavior 16y ago
COBRA applies if you are laid off - not if you quit. (IIRC)
- chrisconley 16y ago
  It might not be for every company, but my wife quit her job last year and we were able to get COBRA.
  - MediaBehavior 16y ago
    My bad: I thought COBRA was dependent on eligibility for the whole unemployment process.
- santry 16y ago
  Not true. I quit my last job and was on COBRA.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Totally false.

tptacek 16y ago

Not a stupid question. Most people COBRA. COBRA is expensive but, like a group plan, automatically accepts you. Since the overwhelming vast majority of indie startups fail, COBRA usually lasts long enough to bridge you to your next job. After about a year or so, if you're not certain you're going to end up with a full-time job, you need to look for real insurance. COBRA will last for almost another year, but when it ends it ends, and god help you if you're hit by a car or diagnosed with something nasty towards the end of your COBRA coverage (nobody will insure you). Coverage from the majors costs roughly $400/mo. It gets much cheaper if you choose a high-deductable plan (you should), in which case you pay for all your health care out of pocket. A family of four can expect to pay over $10k/yr for low-deductable insurance, which is what virtually all companies offer. Now, choose your own adventure: Are you ~22 years old, male, with no dependents, with no long-term health issues and no prior history of hospitalization for illness? You can easily buy high-deductable insurance on the open market. There are several websites that will sell it to you. Otherwise: you may be screwed. If you don't qualify for a group plan of some sort (which is how most Americans obtain health coverage), you may find that you are uninsurable. For instance, in the first year of Matasano, we tried to get private insurance and found that both my daughter and my wife were uninsurable. My daughter had been hospitalized for a freak seizure when she was 4. Erin has a functioning female reproductive system. NO COVERAGE. Not, "we won't cover the things we don't like". No, NO COVERAGE. Every insurer. The list of conditions with "deny coverage" attached to them, which most insurers publish, includes a wide variety of conditions experienced by tens of millions of people. Good luck!

unwind 16y ago
For non-US readers (like myself), COBRA is probably a reference to Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Rec...). This seems to be a law that (among other things) gives employees a right to keep health insurance coverage after leaving employment.
- tptacek 16y ago
  For a limited period of time, they have the right to purchase health coverage at their employer's cost, which is invariably higher than what the employees themselves Were accustomed to paying.

midnightmonster 16y ago

We had cobra through my wife's former job. As others have noted, you can get cobra even if quit on your own. Thankfully, the old job was in Maryland, where state law requires insurance companies to offer a continuation policy after cobra expires. It continues as long as you want it and make your payments, and they have offer you a similar policy in the state you move to if you leave Maryland. We pay almost $1000/month for my wife and the kids to be covered. I have no health insurance at all. Because the policy is in my wife's name, it doesn't qualify as a sole proprietor business expense. (If it were in my name, it would count as a business expense as of 2010, even though it's not bought through the business.) Because of preexisting conditions, we can only get private insurance that excludes most of the things likely to go wrong with my wife and kids. We're now in Florida where the state offers an HMO for children in low income families, but you can buy into it at full price if you don't qualify income-wise. Since the pricing is per-child not per-family, and our fourth is due in June, and we don't qualify for the discounts, the HMO isn't a useful option for us right now. (The 'and children' part of our current insurance is a comparatively small expense.)

pasbesoin 16y ago
For a number of couples I know, one is self-employed or in a small business, while the other works for an organization that provides group insurance. Whether Big Co., the school system, some other aspect of government. Often, the principal reason for the spouse's employment is the health care benefit. (For example, being a teacher's aid pays fairly little, but you get relatively quite good health care coverage.) EDIT: s/principle/principal/ #morning fog
- tptacek 16y ago
  Before Matasano got group coverage in '06, that's how we handled it; Erin took a job in a school system. Erin works with us now, which is a much better state of affairs.

joubert 16y ago

Consider a hospital plan.

angstrom 16y ago

It depends on your situation (age, health, dependents). Last startup I worked at did a high deductible health insurance and subsidized it with a $2000 Health Savings Account (deposits made with each paycheck on your behalf with pretax dollars). Done this way the HSA is like an FSA, but better. The HSA carries over from year to year, the FSA doesn't. If you had a big expense before the $2000 was fully deposited it could be lent by the company and paid back from paychecks. Since the company was already putting this in really what it what meant is that if you left the company before it was recovered from paychecks it would be deducted from the last paycheck. I don't remember the prescription coverage, but from what others said it wasn't bad. Some examples of the coverage: Founder's son had a lung collapse and spent days in the hospital, but only paid 4K out of the HSA. Co-worker had a preemie that spent a month in the hospital before they could take him home. Once again, $4K out of the HSA. High deductible covered the rest. Another co-worker with a long term illness had $400/mo in prescription meds they needed. Covered. Needless to say, they upped our rates the following year... As they say, YMMV.

tptacek 16y ago
HSA's are a good thing, but when your COBRA plan expires, no matter how much you've banked in your HSA, they don't matter: a collapsed lung, complicated childbirth, or long-term illness will bankrupt you.
- angstrom 16y ago
  That's something that should be better normalized. Unfortunately, it varies sometimes based on the state and whether that coverage is required to be extended, but under a different plan. I still think a single-payer system would be best for the economy overall. Decoupling healthcare coverage from employers should free up the market for people to switch jobs and take some risks that might otherwise be unthinkable. If the only thing keeping people working for a company is the healthcare, then maybe that company's practices actually have a negative net impact on the economy even though the balance sheets are in the black. Productivity, stress, and morale may actually be improved by a company with better work-life balance. It's worth considering the side-effects the structure of our society has beyond the highly visible numbers.

kgrin 16y ago

If you live in Massachusetts, it's easy: http://www.mahealthconnector.org http://www.mahealthconnector.org (unsubsidized but group-rate health insurance)

haberman 16y ago

If you squint really hard, universal health care could be seen as pro-entrepreneurship, since it does away with this large barrier to working for a fledgeling company.

me2i81 16y ago
You don't really have to squint very hard at all. Unless you have more than 10 or so employees it's almost impossible to get a group health plan. Young people don't worry about this as much as perhaps they should, but once you get to the age where most people you know have families, it becomes a huge barrier to starting a company.
tptacek 16y ago
You don't have to squint even a little bit to see that. Almost any reasonable guaranteed issue health insurance plan would drastically assist entrepreneurship. I say this every time this issue comes up on HN: in the first couple years of Matasano, one of the top 3 reasons candidates declined to work with us was health insurance. There's even a term for this among the muggles in the mainstream media: "job-lock". It's very real. If you have a family, job lock is one of the major things keeping you from starting a company, or become a freelancer (a good first step towards entrepreneurship).
- jcr 16y ago
  As mentioned "Job Lock" is a very real problem, but it's not as bad as "Provider Lock" --being permanently locked into a particular insurance and/or healthcare provider due to a pre-existing condition. In other words, if you somehow lost your insurance, no one else would insure you. Being locked into a health provider can be devastating in a number of different ways.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I'm not sure those are even different issues; if you get seriously ill while on your BigCo Kaiser plan, you're stuck at BigCo; even Kaiser isn't going to cover you if you switch jobs (and thus plans).

jdminhbg 16y ago

If you're healthy and single it's pretty easy. You just need a high-deductible plan for emergencies, which I found to be easy to get and not unreasonably expensive in my state (PA). A friend with a pregnant wife on the other hand had a lot more trouble; presumably the potential for childbirth catastrophe throws a wrench into insurability.

awolf 16y ago

I quit my full time job last August. As a Type 1 Diabetic it's pretty important for me to not let my group coverage lapse. I'm paying $491.00 /mo for Cobra (10% more than what my employer was paying for my coverage). Because I live in California I should be eligible for Cal-COBRA which extends my coverage to 36 months total. It's expensive but worth it. Taking the plunge to go out on my own as a freelancer has been one of the best decisions of my life.

steveklabnik 16y ago

I just didn't have any.

gcb 16y ago

This point is more interesting and in the hn style than anything in the original article. Hn should have a easy way to spin comments into fp stories, as people that could probably talk a lot about health insurance can not be too interested in why some guy left google...

iki23 16y ago

Reading this thread is like having a nightmare. Here in middle of Europe, individuals pay basically $50/mo. That covers everything needed at 95% private doctors and nearly 100% hospitals ... then you only pay for optional higher standards, other optional treatment/drugs, part of the prescribed drug costs and $1.5 per any private doctor treatment. When you're employee, then insurance is paid by employer and based on a month sallary. When you are self-employed then the cost is based on yearly taxes, but generally quite low. Whem you are unemployed and registered, then the state pays the insurance.

usaar333 16y ago

While self-funding my company, I just paid for it myself. It was about $70/month (since raised to $100 after sex discrimination was banned) and with a $2900 deductible. If you are fortunate to not have any preconditions and don't have a family you need to cover, getting your own health insurance shouldn't be that hard materially. It is pricier though than rates you'd get from an employer.

pnathan 16y ago

Yes. Health insurance is not a big deal if health problems are not absurdly expensive (c.f. health care cost increase in the US).

Mz 16y ago

This might help some folks under the age of 26 but it's pretty new so wouldn't have impacted people who went out on their own until fairly recently: Under the Act, all plans and insurance issuers that offer dependent coverage must offer coverage to an enrollee’s adult children whether married or unmarried until the child reaches age 26, even if the adult child no longer lives with the parents, is not a dependent on a parent’s tax return or is no longer a student. (Plans that do not provide dependent coverage are not required to do so under the Act.) However, this extended eligibility does not apply to the adult child’s spouse or children. This expansion of eligibility is effective for plan or policy years beginning on or after September 23, 2010. Calendar year plans will have to comply as of January 1, 2011. http://dmeclegal.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/details-on-dependent-coverage-to-age-26-under-reform/ http://dmeclegal.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/details-on-depende...

gte910h 16y ago

I did an individual plan for a number of years.

rdouble 16y ago

When I was self-employed in California, I used Kaiser Permanente. I paid around $200 a month as a single 32 year old. I used the coverage for a few checkups and whatnot, and thought it was good service and value. Buying my own plan through KP was about $150/m less than COBRA. The hitch with KP is that you have to use their hospitals. However if you are in California, that shouldn't be a problem.

henryfarbles 16y ago

Here's an article about places that offer benefits to part-time employees: http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2008/12/22/companies-that-give-benefits-to-part-timers/ http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2008/12/22/companies-that-give-... Could be handy to have health insurance as well as some extra time to program.