5 ms·

I've said it before - it's insane that more startups don't locate in Massachusetts in the early days. The Mass Connector can get you pretty decent coverage for

I've said it before - it's insane that more startups don't locate in Massachusetts in the early days. The Mass Connector can get you pretty decent coverage for around ~$250 a month. Live there, take the Megabus down to NYC for NYTM and funding, and come back. Sure, it's cold, but it's not the worst place to be otherwise.

keeptrying 16y ago
How much for a single founder?
- sachinag 16y ago
  ~$250 a person. You can do group coverage through the Connector as well, but group plans are pretty easy to get through traditional brokers once you hit four enrollees. (You may have some employees covered through their spouse or school, but you need to have four enrollees with the same plan to get group rates.) I'd recommend that startups in Mass/looking to move just have everyone pay their own health insurance through the Connector until you raise angel funding and scale up in people. (I set up the group health insurance when I led Operations at oneforty.)
  - dugmartin 16y ago
    You can also get group coverage through the Mass Busineess Association. My HSA policy is $850 month and covers me, my wife and two kids. Pretty high deductible though.
bhousel 16y ago
Yeah, I have thought about that, Boston and Philadelphia aren't that far. But stop for a minute and think - we are seriously talking about commuting 2 hours to save a few hundred dollars a month on health care. Why?? Why do we even need to have that conversation? That's how broken things are. I'm a non-smoking 34 year old marathon runner.. I go to the doctor once a year, if that. Companies should be fighting over the opportunity to insure me. It shouldn't be the #1 reason I can't grow a business.
- dpritchett 16y ago
  Parent poster wasn't saying to live in Mass. and work in NYC, just that NYC is a bus ride away for important things like meetups and funding trips. Live in Mass., work in Mass. It's great that you're healthy but business growth is going to involve taking other people on and I for one am not taking a job without health care while I have two other people depending on me. A single major health issue could bankrupt me!
- beoba 16y ago
  Nitpick: Lots of things can happen to otherwise healthy people.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  I'm a non-smoking 31 year old half-marathon runner, and I'm paying $110/month in PA. I would assume you'd also save hundreds of dollars a month on rent and other living expenses in PA (or MA, though I can't speak directly for Boston). I don't think moving 2 hours away to save $1k or more per month is a bad move for a startup.
- kungfooey 16y ago
  In NY, health insurance coverage cannot decline anyone based on pre-existing conditions. So younger, healthy applicants have to pay more since there are a lot of people in the system who are a net loss. Thus, less healthy people are covered, and the system continues become worse... it's a very bad feedback loop.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
I've said it before - it's insane that more startups don't locate in Massachusetts in the early days. It's only insane if you believe that health insurance is a major barrier for startups. The fact that startups didn't relocate to MA en masse after Romneycare took effect suggests that perhaps access to capital/talent is far more important.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Facile. People in the professional class don't tend to move "en masse". Residency is sticky for reasons beyond health insurance. Health care clearly is a factor retarding professionals from moving into entrepeneurship; if I saw it repeatedly at my very small company, think how much larger the issue must be nationally.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    So startups/entrepreneurs don't move to the valley in order to increase their odds of success? I agree that many paycheck seeking professionals might not do so, but that's a rather different question. Health care clearly is a factor... I wasn't disputing that it is a factor. I was disputing the idea that it is a larger factor than access to capital or talent. Look, we hear about people moving to the valley all the time. People move to NY as well, though it's less common. Are all of these entrepreneurs "insane" (to borrow sachinag's language) for chasing capital/talent rather than Romneycare?
    - tptacek 16y ago
      First, no: the entire "entrepreneurial class", whatever that may be, has not moved en masse to the valley. If you think the entire population of startup entrepreneurs that is seriously committed to tech has moved there, or at least enough of them to support your argument, then what are we talking about? You don't believe there's a latent vein of entrepreneurship that needs to be tapped anyways. Second: yes. Most of the people who are moving to NYC and SFBA are irrational. Most of their companies fail. Everybody knows that going in. To the extent that they move entirely in support of their startups, they are crazy. (The fact is, most of the people moving aren't doing so entirely for their startup; they want to live there.) Third, I doubt most entrepreneurs even know about "Romneycare". I'm only peripherally familiar with its specifics, and, as you can probably tell, health care is one of my issues.
dwiel 16y ago
In Bloomington, IN if your income is below a certain level, there is a whole office of volunteer doctors that will treat you. I've got a few friends that go there and love it. A friend of mine broke his foot over the summer and got a cast and crutches and everything for free.
- tptacek 16y ago
  If your uninsured appendix bursts, the volunteer doctors are unlikely to keep you from going bankrupt. The health care problem isn't "doctor visits are too expensive".
  - protomyth 16y ago
    yep, it is the catastrophic that gets most people. I really wish the administration had tried to take some baby steps instead of going for something they are giving waivers to avoid and really not explaining how their thing would be different from the VA or IHS. A "flood"-style insurance to protect against the catastrophic, and changing the Health savings accounts to be easier and inheritable probably would have been good first steps.
  - regularfry 16y ago
    It's argued to be part of the problem, though. When doctor's visits are expensive, minor problems escalate because they aren't caught early enough to be cheap to deal with. At least, that's the argument. I don't claim to be an expert in these things.
abrenzel 16y ago
--~$250 a month is still an insane price for a single person. I live in Illinois of all places and have decent HMO coverage for less than $100. Granted, I am not currently in a start up, but in a business of about 15 employees. Various catastrophic-only plans (assuming your state offers them) can be had for significantly less if you're healthy.-- //this is clearly not right, being dumb today and forgot to add in the employer contribution (I believe it comes to about 200 to 250 in total for our particular plan, so it is comparable, but my point about catastrophic-only plans (which are often outlawed in states like Massachusetts, still stands // The problem with MassCare (and ObamaCare) is that their mix of guaranteed issue, mandates, community rating, minimum creditable coverage guidelines, and subsidies still inflates the price of health insurance, and state subsidies can't keep up. This was evident in Massachusetts as early as 2007, right after MassCare began to be implemented (see this report for exmaple: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14237 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14237) I think the Startup America concept is admirable. Would that the federal government understood the real problem with starting a business in the United States right now isn't the lack of a couple billion in government programs, but the regulatory barriers and inflation in commodities and products like health insurance that prevent new firms from entering the market, inflation that the federal government has in many ways helped create.
- sachinag 16y ago
  Your share of the coverage is $100. The cost of that coverage is most certainly not $100. Odds are your employer is paying $400 (given the standard 80/20 split at smaller companies).
  - abrenzel 16y ago
    I upvoted you, thanks for the correction. I'm a little embarrassed I wrote that. Maybe I should drink my coffee first...
- abrenzel 16y ago
  Yeah as soon as I wrote that I realized the fallacy in the first paragraph...oops!

keeptrying 16y ago

How much for a single founder?

sachinag 16y ago
~$250 a person. You can do group coverage through the Connector as well, but group plans are pretty easy to get through traditional brokers once you hit four enrollees. (You may have some employees covered through their spouse or school, but you need to have four enrollees with the same plan to get group rates.) I'd recommend that startups in Mass/looking to move just have everyone pay their own health insurance through the Connector until you raise angel funding and scale up in people. (I set up the group health insurance when I led Operations at oneforty.)
- dugmartin 16y ago
  You can also get group coverage through the Mass Busineess Association. My HSA policy is $850 month and covers me, my wife and two kids. Pretty high deductible though.

bhousel 16y ago

Yeah, I have thought about that, Boston and Philadelphia aren't that far. But stop for a minute and think - we are seriously talking about commuting 2 hours to save a few hundred dollars a month on health care. Why?? Why do we even need to have that conversation? That's how broken things are. I'm a non-smoking 34 year old marathon runner.. I go to the doctor once a year, if that. Companies should be fighting over the opportunity to insure me. It shouldn't be the #1 reason I can't grow a business.

dpritchett 16y ago
Parent poster wasn't saying to live in Mass. and work in NYC, just that NYC is a bus ride away for important things like meetups and funding trips. Live in Mass., work in Mass. It's great that you're healthy but business growth is going to involve taking other people on and I for one am not taking a job without health care while I have two other people depending on me. A single major health issue could bankrupt me!
beoba 16y ago
Nitpick: Lots of things can happen to otherwise healthy people.
jdminhbg 16y ago
I'm a non-smoking 31 year old half-marathon runner, and I'm paying $110/month in PA. I would assume you'd also save hundreds of dollars a month on rent and other living expenses in PA (or MA, though I can't speak directly for Boston). I don't think moving 2 hours away to save $1k or more per month is a bad move for a startup.
kungfooey 16y ago
In NY, health insurance coverage cannot decline anyone based on pre-existing conditions. So younger, healthy applicants have to pay more since there are a lot of people in the system who are a net loss. Thus, less healthy people are covered, and the system continues become worse... it's a very bad feedback loop.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I've said it before - it's insane that more startups don't locate in Massachusetts in the early days. It's only insane if you believe that health insurance is a major barrier for startups. The fact that startups didn't relocate to MA en masse after Romneycare took effect suggests that perhaps access to capital/talent is far more important.

tptacek 16y ago
Facile. People in the professional class don't tend to move "en masse". Residency is sticky for reasons beyond health insurance. Health care clearly is a factor retarding professionals from moving into entrepeneurship; if I saw it repeatedly at my very small company, think how much larger the issue must be nationally.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  So startups/entrepreneurs don't move to the valley in order to increase their odds of success? I agree that many paycheck seeking professionals might not do so, but that's a rather different question. Health care clearly is a factor... I wasn't disputing that it is a factor. I was disputing the idea that it is a larger factor than access to capital or talent. Look, we hear about people moving to the valley all the time. People move to NY as well, though it's less common. Are all of these entrepreneurs "insane" (to borrow sachinag's language) for chasing capital/talent rather than Romneycare?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    First, no: the entire "entrepreneurial class", whatever that may be, has not moved en masse to the valley. If you think the entire population of startup entrepreneurs that is seriously committed to tech has moved there, or at least enough of them to support your argument, then what are we talking about? You don't believe there's a latent vein of entrepreneurship that needs to be tapped anyways. Second: yes. Most of the people who are moving to NYC and SFBA are irrational. Most of their companies fail. Everybody knows that going in. To the extent that they move entirely in support of their startups, they are crazy. (The fact is, most of the people moving aren't doing so entirely for their startup; they want to live there.) Third, I doubt most entrepreneurs even know about "Romneycare". I'm only peripherally familiar with its specifics, and, as you can probably tell, health care is one of my issues.

dwiel 16y ago

In Bloomington, IN if your income is below a certain level, there is a whole office of volunteer doctors that will treat you. I've got a few friends that go there and love it. A friend of mine broke his foot over the summer and got a cast and crutches and everything for free.

tptacek 16y ago
If your uninsured appendix bursts, the volunteer doctors are unlikely to keep you from going bankrupt. The health care problem isn't "doctor visits are too expensive".
- protomyth 16y ago
  yep, it is the catastrophic that gets most people. I really wish the administration had tried to take some baby steps instead of going for something they are giving waivers to avoid and really not explaining how their thing would be different from the VA or IHS. A "flood"-style insurance to protect against the catastrophic, and changing the Health savings accounts to be easier and inheritable probably would have been good first steps.
- regularfry 16y ago
  It's argued to be part of the problem, though. When doctor's visits are expensive, minor problems escalate because they aren't caught early enough to be cheap to deal with. At least, that's the argument. I don't claim to be an expert in these things.

abrenzel 16y ago

--~$250 a month is still an insane price for a single person. I live in Illinois of all places and have decent HMO coverage for less than $100. Granted, I am not currently in a start up, but in a business of about 15 employees. Various catastrophic-only plans (assuming your state offers them) can be had for significantly less if you're healthy.-- //this is clearly not right, being dumb today and forgot to add in the employer contribution (I believe it comes to about 200 to 250 in total for our particular plan, so it is comparable, but my point about catastrophic-only plans (which are often outlawed in states like Massachusetts, still stands // The problem with MassCare (and ObamaCare) is that their mix of guaranteed issue, mandates, community rating, minimum creditable coverage guidelines, and subsidies still inflates the price of health insurance, and state subsidies can't keep up. This was evident in Massachusetts as early as 2007, right after MassCare began to be implemented (see this report for exmaple: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14237 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14237) I think the Startup America concept is admirable. Would that the federal government understood the real problem with starting a business in the United States right now isn't the lack of a couple billion in government programs, but the regulatory barriers and inflation in commodities and products like health insurance that prevent new firms from entering the market, inflation that the federal government has in many ways helped create.

sachinag 16y ago
Your share of the coverage is $100. The cost of that coverage is most certainly not $100. Odds are your employer is paying $400 (given the standard 80/20 split at smaller companies).
- abrenzel 16y ago
  I upvoted you, thanks for the correction. I'm a little embarrassed I wrote that. Maybe I should drink my coffee first...
abrenzel 16y ago
Yeah as soon as I wrote that I realized the fallacy in the first paragraph...oops!