Official Luthiers Forum!

Please keep this out of the political sphere... ok?

Otherwise I will share MY thoughts with you... and that will be just about guaranteed to offend everyone. (Ask Lance... he knows. )

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Was this for me? If so I apollogize. I thought I skirted the issue.

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Horton, MI

Now you just made me curious!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Inquiring Mind, Bob?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

In Tennessee we have what is called Cover Tennessee.My son works for me and I help to provide his insurance.The way it works is the State pays a third the employer pays a third and the employee pays a third.The employer can also elect to pay 2 thirds if he wishes,which I do or else I have to answer to the misses.It`s kind of a good compromise .There isn`t a deductible,just a co-pay depending on what the medical situation is.And of course you can only qualify below a certain income level.And speaking of the misses Hesh,I`ll donate her to marry you if you promise not to give her back. HA HA
James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

No, the conversation is just taking "that turn"... it was not aimed at anyone in particular.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I already had some. I think I'm dying!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Getting back on topic here Ken buddy I did a Google search specifically for Florida and found some good links.

These include a description of a Florida specific effort to provide low-cost health insurance and of course the usual suspects, the Blues, Atena, etc. who are offering plans to individuals.

This link is for the search results but I think that you might find some of these listings of value to you and your wife.

http://www.google.com/search?q=obtaining+health+insurance+in+florida&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Ken,

I have been on Cobra for the last 2+ years and have a little less than a year to go. It was my cheapest option at the time but may wind up being my most expensive in the long term, as I will soon have to find a private carrier. At 57, I have been self employed since 1978 and supplied my own insurance until I married (for a very short time) and went on her work health plan. When we divorced I was allowed to subscribe to Cobra for 3 years. The Cobra was less than 1/2 the price of regular insurance, and because I had a stroke during the divorce process, I felt it was my only option. The stroke coupled with the fact that I have had continous back problems since Labor Day of 2007, leave me feeling like I may not even be insurable, or if I am with multiple exclusions. I am starting to look for replacement insurance now and have no idea what I will be looking at pricewise. Before all of this I was insured through a group plann sponsored by the Farm Bureau. I joined the group, and paid dues of $100 a year, and was thrown into their group plan which was a cheaper premium. I have a machine shop, and have nothing to do with farming except that my girlfried owns an apricot orchard, so I'm not sure how that worked for me but it did and for about 10 years. Not sure where I will wind up this time but have a meeting set up with the same insurance broker for next week. Five years ago he was pushing the health savings plan and I imagine that is where I will wind up until I qualify for Medicare.

My advice is to fing a good broker(s) and explore all options. There are group plans for self employeds. You most likely will pay more than the Cobra policy but in the long run it could actually be less. Find the plan you like while you have the Cobra policy.

Good Luck
Tim

Wow! That's incredible! Let's all move to Virginia! Sure can't find anything like that here in NY, no matter how high the deductable, even with the state sponsored Healthy New York program. $275/month! For the whole family! Man, that would be great.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

You are at a good age. Wait till you are in your upper 50's, the tune will change. When I became self employed, back in '92, I was 48, and got premiums in the $300 range, and was pretty happy. When I switched to the Assurant HSA plan a couple of years ago, I had had Blue Cross for about 4 years, and it had gone from around $400 per month to about $860 per month and was getting ready to break to over $1100 on the next tic. The Assurant policy came in at under $400, and has a rider for my Asthma, but I'm still saving a ton, even paying out of pocket for my meds and doctor appointments. I estimate that my savings, with the pre tax HSA, are somewhere over $4000 per year.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

its a corporate lets put profit above all things problem , its a lets sue the insurance companies ( and doctors) problem , its a lawmakers sold their souls to the insurance lobby problem .! Jody

Jody, this link doesnt work. I am thankful for each of your responses and really appreciate the ones that are non-political also.

Some of these links have been very interesting reads and I have applied at several of them. Believe it or not, the cheapest way out right now is the one that Billy Mayes is hawking on TV... It has a very high deductable and only covers things that require hospitalization... up to a point (no cancer chemotherapy treatments for example). That insurance is Cynergy insurance at a little less than $400/month for my wife and I combined. It is looking like doing that along with starting some sort of HSA at the same time to cover some of the other expensive treatments will be the best for now. The good thing is that even though cynergy is limited coverage, it still qualifies you as being covered by health insurance so that if you ever find another insurance company that will cover you (or in my case my wife goes to work somewhere else with health insurance) they cannot deny you because of pre-existing conditions.

I am continuing to look into other options and I appreciate all of the good responses this discussion has brought out. It is another factor to consider if you find yourself wanting to become self employed.

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Reguards,

Ken H

There is nothing wrong with the profit motive as long as you are competing fairly, but rigging the legal system to your advantage is moving past capitalism.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

sorry ken it worked for me , google assurant direct, it will lead you there .. Jody

yeah look for auto insurance rates in new york to go up , i just heard on the news , they got a law passed they can raise the rates up to 5 % without needing government approval ! thanks to "our" representatives that voted that one in ! Jody

I have not read all postings, so forgive if this is redundant. I saw one post with a link to an insurance site, and another suggesting professional society membership. Simlarly, if your business is large enought to qualify for NAMM membership, they have connections for group discounts. Also, I think that Administaff does.

I don’t have any real information on health insurance but do have a thought regarding savings on prescriptions. The obvious cost savings on prescriptions is to always ask for generic products. For those who are unable to have generics brands or who have to pay quite a bit for medications. A good hint is to request stronger medication from your Doctor. Many medications come in a variety of strengths yet the pricing is about the same regardless of strength. Let’s say you had a muscular problem and the Doctor prescribed Valium. Valium comes in 2mg, 5mg, and 10mg tablets. If 2mg or 5mg were prescribed you could request the higher dosage and cut the pills in half. If the price is similar this could be a good cost savings.
It all depends on the medication and the available strengths.

Discuss these plans with your Doctor and you will find many will work with you to help you curb costs. Be sure to get the go ahead from the Doctor because some medications have special coatings for timed release and could be harmful if the medication is absorbed too quickly.
Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Call your Fed Congress and Senator and telll them to get on board with Fed law to allow interstate coop's in insurance. Particularly those who live in more "progressive" areas of country like NorthEast, Calif and other places, those are a lot of the part of country the reps and senators are blocking that particular law. Look up the sessions of congress and read what was prHoposed and defeated. One side maybe protecting the private sector to much and the other wants it bad so can get single payer gov. coverage. Which ever way it ends up in the next few years it will probably suck for someone. I am not going to get into all of it here, because of forum policy which I respect. But if this is a big issue for you, contact lawmakers, check out their reasons one way or another they voted and vote how you think you want reps to vote in Washington. I just worry about the gov. admin of this, but I look at the way they do everything else they run and not encouraged. I may be wrong they might run it really good.

If any of you are veterans, check out the VA. It goes from a co-pay system and conjunction with private insurance or whatever have and full service pay for 50% disability. Those co-payments are based on income. I have used it for several years and not a problem.
They may take a while to get you in the system, but once there it isn't that bad of service. Never have more than a 10-15 minute wait for dr visit. Now it doesn't do dependents unless 100% total and perm which I am rated. Thing is to get that rating things haven't gone to well for you in combat area or sucked to much agent orange (both in my case) also includes a bad HALO landing few years ago. That said, it may help those single guys or health care for one less person. If you are out there and rated check it out. If not rated and think have a service connected problem, get rated. All vets are able to use it. As good as private care, don't know if for everyone. All I have talked to in the Tulsa and Denver areas it is good and not much in complaints.

If you tried it or use the CHAMPUS (active duty) care and think it sucks, think of what it would be like for everyone and not all paying for it, and not enough rich to get it and everything else for all in taxes. I have it because rated for it and not bad for me and my wife (she pays a $50.00 yr deductable) and they send meds in the mail. Thing is if have emergency or need big surgery (like postrate things going on now), heart bypass etc have to go maybe 200 miles away to a VA hospital. Good hospitals or at least one in OKC is, but wish they could contract with local hospitals. Have been talking to my legislative folks about that, but probably not get far with it. It is an option to check out.

Medi-Share seems like a good program if you match the qualifications. (I'll not mention them here to avoid more political/religious discussion.)
It is not insurance, it is sharing expenses across a larger pool. It seems like a great plan with very low rates. I like the concept of people sharing expenses without the profit needed by large insurance companies.
It has a central organization that tells members who to send money to. You submit your claim to them and they approve the expense and tell members to send you their monthly portion. It sounds intriguing, simple, and obvious. I wonder why other organization don't form and do this.


http://medi-share.org/what_is_medishare.aspx

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Splitting tablets can be workable. Like Philip says though, make sure you tell your physician first that's what you'd like to do. There are some meds which aren't time released that shouldn't be split or crushed just as there are some meds which are time released that can be split in half (no, I didn't get that backwards, it's true). Double check with your pharmacist and make sure the med you are speaking of can be split.

Generics are overall good options. Be aware though that there are certain meds for which a generic does exist but switching between the two is not recommended-- not because the generic is any better or worse than the brand product, just that they can be a little different in the resultant serum levels (things like Warfarin/Coumadin, Levothyroxine/Snythroid, etc.).

Also, many times there is a generic product of med A which will have an equipotent dose as med B for which there is no generic. Sometimes this is an option, sometimes not... it all depends.

Bear in mind that for the elderly, sight impaired, arthritis sufferers, and other populations, splitting meds or converting between different meds may cause more trouble than its really worth.

Also-- this is a total hijack of the thread. Be aware that the pharmacist behind the counter does *NOT* get any of the money you pay for the med. Far too many times I've heard, "All you have to do is slap a label on it and put my money in your pocket," or something along those lines. Most anything with "-Mart" in the name has a tendency to use Rx meds as "loss leaders" to get you to buy $100 worth of cr@p while you're waiting for your your prescription to be filled. When I worked retail, the average reimbursement from a third party insurance plan gave the pharmacy a whopping $1.50 for each prescription filled. Out of this you have to pay the rent, lights, utilities, employees, cleaning crews, oh yeah-- and buy your lunch, not to mention reorder another $400 bottle of medicine you just sold for a $3.00 copay while waiting 30 days for your reimbursement from the insurance company for the cost of the drug. Even at 500 prescriptions a day (which, by the way is NUTS!)-- that's only $750 profit total per day.

Okay, hijack over... back to regular scheduled programming!

JC

Just for the record, my wife spent the better part of the day doing research on some of these suggestions.

The health insurance offered by AARP is through Aetna, with whom we already have insurance using the COBRA plan. We have already applied to them to change our coverage to a personal plan with a higher deductable to lessen the monthly costs.

Aetna has a plan with a high deductable ($5,000.00 for instance) and is compatible with HSA. That plan only pays for catestrophic hospitilizations, you pay for everything else using your HSA or your other funding. Of course they have other plans as well, and we have applied for one of them.

Medishare basically pays for 80% of the medicare rates for certain things. They have no documentation to tell you what is NOT covered under their plan. The information they do offer makes me think they would not consider me for coverage based on past heart problems.

She also checked into some of the others, but didnt find anything that looked interesting. We are still looking to talk to Blue Cross about their self employment group plans.

Thanks again to those that offered information!

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Reguards,

Ken H