VISTA Health Solutions

At present there is the concern for affordable health care for all Americans.  Small businesspeople and the self-employed are faced with expensive private insurance companies that charge exorbitant premiums for self-employed and small businesses. The self-employed and the small business owner are currently in a precarious position, one the one hand, unable to pay for high self-employed and personal health plans but making a living and therefore unable to able for state Medicaid plans.a

If you have left your current employer to start up your own business, chances are you have enrolled in the consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 better known as COBRA, the good side of this is that you are still covered for up to 18 months after you left your job, but the downside is that COBRA, is still very expensive. Since your employer is no longer paying the bulk of your premiums, which are in some cases up to 80 percent, you are faced with paying the entire cost on your own.

What happens if you decide not to take advantage of the Cobra Plan?

Yes you can purchase health insurance on the open market, as long as you are in good health and have not had any policies rescinded before, and oh yes your credit rating is good as well.  You will need to calculate how much money you can come up with out of pocket, should a medical emergency occur and then you would have to choose a plan that is as streamlined as possible for what you need for yourself and family. What you don’t want to do is not have coverage at all. You don’t want to risk your business and your life savings to a bankruptcy.  Nearly 60 percent of all bankruptcies in America happen because of the inability to pay medical expenses.  You do not want to become part of the statistics.

However, if you have COBRA now, you would have the same coverage that you had when you were employed.  If you have a pre-existing condition and the group policy you had covered that pre existing condition, it does not necessarily mean that once you go out on your own, it will be easy to get the same benefits in a private policy.  Some employers do not cover pre-existing conditions. You would have to make sure before the expiry of your COBRA eligibility what the state laws are and get an insurance advisor to help find a good health insurance private plan.

On the other hand, before trying a private plan, you may decide to take advantage of your spouses group plan after you leave your current job to start up your own business.  The advantage of this group plan is that normally health insurance companies cannot refuse you on a family plan, if you have a pre-condition, nor can they rate you, (increase your premiums based on that pre-condition).

Some states such as New York are known as guarantee issue states and these states cannot deny you or raise your health insurance premiums based on a pre-condition. However the conditions for coverage would still vary among these states.  For example the coverage may only apply if you are already covered with a policy somewhere else and are wishing to switch over to a guaranteed issue plan.

One way of keeping health insurance costs down is to practice preventive medicine.  When people do their part to prevent illnesses from happening they in turn, help not only themselves from becoming sick, they prevent contagious diseases from affecting their family, co-workers, and the community at large.  Prevention can save money for doctor visits and medical treatments.

The high cost for health care affect everyone, but it especially affects the self-employed and the small business owner.  Small businesses pay very high premiums for their policies already but that is only half of the story.  When a self-employed individual is out of work that means loss of salary especially if the self-employed person has no one else to run to business.  When you are working independently you can lose your contracts because you are too ill to work.

Though no one can know when you will be ill, if at least you take the necessary precautions to keep yourself reasonably healthy you can continue to work. One thing you need to do as a self-employed individual is to make sure you take your flu shots.  Several federal government agencies have announced that they will help business owners to prepare for H1N1 and regular flu vaccines in 2009.  It is important for everyone’s health care to make sure that all employees remain healthy.

In a small business, whether there is one employee or 20 all employees are needed to keep the work running smoothly and no small business owner can afford to have anyone, including themselves off from work because of the flu.  Furthermore, just one person was the flu could pass the virus on and infect everyone.  This would cripple production and in small companies it can cause a stand still.

Small business owners concerned about the health care of their employees should encourage everyone to get the flu vaccine, wash their hands thoroughly in order not to spread any virus, and consider canceling any non essential travel or meetings where they can pick up the flu from others.

One the other hand, the self-employed business person should advise their employees who have the flu to stay home in order not to infect others.  Wherever possible employees could work from home and thus still have some wages to fall back on. If your employees appear to have flu like symptoms send them home, better to have one employee out then your whole staff.  It would be beneficial for the small business owner to cover flu shots or partial flu shots and have a nurse come into the business to administer treatment.  If the small business owner has sick leave insurance that is wonderful. In the long run the consequences for time off work for both employee and employer will run much higher than the cost of carrying a policy.  Prevention is the best medicine and proper insurance and flu shots can save your company from losing irretrievable lost profits and financial setbacks.