I get hit with taxes it seems on everything including when I buy/sell on the net. I get hit with taxes when we work in different states etc etc etc. A simpler solution would be to DOWNSIZE Gov’t. Our gov’t was put in place for us “The people”… When did it become a place to have the largest job base that “We the people” pay for?
There’s only 5 states that are expecting to be a savings with Obamacare. My home state of NY the savings looks big but it’s just a matter of time when they make you pick the doctors that you don’t use-- this is where I expect to have future problems with.
They should have delayed this for further review at least a year to see if it’s really worth it. To shut the gov’t over this was a joke and IMO it looked bad for Obama to push for this when it obviously wasn’t ready to be brought public.
I am one of the few also this will help. Due to my leukemia I am uninsurable on my own, but will also not only be able to get my own insurance (without spousal insurance as I have gotten in the past) but also will get some tax credits. I haven’t gotten it figured up yet, but it will be pretty good blue cross/blue shield insurance and at a decent rate for individual.
My wife and I dropped our health insurance all together a little less than a year ago. We joined a cost sharing ministry and we love it. It satisfies the obamacare individual mandate so we don’t have to pay that fine/tax. We don’t pay ANY “premiums”. Every month we send our share directly to another member who has medical bills. This amount by the way is much lower than our premiums would be with a h.i. policy that includes maternity. Best part is that when we have medical bills (like my wifes maternity visits etc), not only do other members pitch in but they pray for us too. If you want some info on it PM me.
Looks like my home state, Virginia, is going to be the winner in terms of having the highest cost for insurance if the numbers are accurate. What ever happened to the slogan “Virginia is for Lovers”? LOL
The one we are using is called Samaritan Ministries. We actually feel good when we write our share check every month…when’s the last time you felt good paying an insurance premium?
That sure seems interesting. The only problem I can see with that is if there is a family who has some serious health issues. Who decides which family gets what? Besides that it looks like a real workable idea and prayers are attached to for free. Very cool.
[MENTION=7612]PressurePoint[/MENTION] Thanks for responding to my message so quick … That is a great idea and although you don’t have insurance your still “covered” so to speak … I was in a accident today and totalled my gas mileage car (a kid decided to stop in the right hand lane to turn left across 4 lanes of traffic) … Anyway this is the first time a got a face full of a airbag and this did get me thinking what if I did go full time pressure washing and didn’t have any insurance … It is nice to there are other options … I think in the meantime I will add your org to my giving list … Also, I don’t see why a group of 50,000 + of healthy self employed people don’t form there own “org” to do something list this.
Orgs talked about that plenty of times over the years but it’s never been followed thru enough. One of the problems deals with state issues. (you can almost run an analogy with this in the environmental issues). The orgs/associations are national and beyond. The first reaction the members get is this can’t be done that’s effective enough because of states having different rules when it comes to health insurance.
This is another reason you want your group to grow because you may now have more members in your State that you can now join with them to look for group insurance rates. This seems like it can be done but I think what caused this to for a lack of a better term “Die” on the planning room floor is because the numbers are still to low to make this feasible. A joint venture with other org’s on this could be a consideration but so far it hasn’t been proven that org’s work to well together.
The PWRA and the WCRA possibly can work together on this benefit if they haven’t done so already.
Occasionally the amount of needs has exceeded the amount of shares and then they just prorate everyone at 90% and make it up the next month or so. Its not a tiny group (27,000 families) so they deal with major needs all the time.
[MENTION=2754]John T.[/MENTION] , When I talked about forming an “org” I wasn’t talking about getting traditionial health care. I was talking about a “share” program. Don’t know if that’s you meant or not. My employer, which is a fortune 500 company with 25-30k employees (prob more) has insurance through OptimaHealth. My payment for Optima Plus PPO + Metlife Dental + Vision is $288.32 per month (going up the $330.25 for 2014) and my Employee pays $1310 per month. So if that’s the best a company can do with that many employee, I say the system is F*** up. Isn’t insurance a pool of people anyway. I see more of the self funded pools or “Orgs” as a big trend in the furture. My employer has already hinted that they are going “to pay to play” this coming year and will re-evaluate the situation next year. If I get dropped or leave my job I will never give OptimaHealth or Anthem another dime in my lifetime. I think they are part of the problem also IMO.
Can you imagine a super group of over 150,000 self-employed people forming there own health care “sharing” system. WOW, wouldn’t that be something
Sean I love it!!
I just wrote out a half hour response to this with some history of what I did on my own but my I-pad blinked and all was lost. Your thinking worked in my past occupation. You are right on and the org’s/associations should read what you posted… It’s critical to there successes in this.
[MENTION=2754]John T.[/MENTION] , it’s going to happen, and I think it going to happen BIGTIME. People are going to get tired of paying 2k/month out their pockets for 5k deductible crappy ins. If the healthcare continues to get worse, people are going to get themselves into self insured plans until they can get medicare. I know with myself if I’m in self-insured pool I will be more responsible with my healthcare visits. The only down side is usually when there is alot of money at stake, greed and bad people come in play.
Basically, it’s like in business, a numbers game. The whole always out powers the one. What your saying about a “super group 150,000 strong” can start with 10 people. There are group discounts in almost everything. An analogy is if I buy 5 gallons of Armstrong Clark stain for example I have to pay for shipping. If I buy 20 or more gallons shipping maybe free.
In insurance there are group policies that are a cost saving per individual in a group on average. That is the start. The problem with these org/associations right now is that there pretty small state to state. But to start lets say you can find 10 PWRA members in your state(could be any 10 people and not just PWRA inclusive) if you can get agreements from them to pay for a year you can look for group payments. Unions do this all the time and they only have to guarantee so many participants to the plan.
Group Policies are a game changer because of the numbers. If on a wishful thinking if you were to negotiate with a health insurance carrier that you have 150,000 participants the savings would be astronomical.
It’s always about the money and bring in a group then it’s time to negotiate some deals. We did this with Dental as well.
John, you are still taking about traditionial health insurance with health care providors. I bet if you have your 150,000 members the best you can get my very good 2k/ month policy that I have now for a family of 3 would be $1500/month. Here is the problem, I am only willing to pay 500/month max. There is no way you will get if for that. I bet that my insurance providor have only paid out 30-40% of my premiums in any giving year max. The health care providors are here to make a profit. I wonder what their CEO and officers make a year. They have become IMO a big fat TURD. The non profit sharing concept like Samaritan Ministries is a very smart alternative approach. I can think of severals mods to that model to make it better.
Ok I Gotcha. I agree that there are CEO’s that are draining the system hence “Fat Turds”. Thats a problem. Also fraud is a huge problem causing health insurance prices to skyrocket. So that’s another problem. Those problems need to be addressed and “Social Medicine” isn’t the answer IMO.
Without really knowing much about what your saying it does seem plausible that it could work since the Samaritan Ministries seems to be a fine example of that. I’m still a little lost on how you pick doctors in network with that. My insurance carrier is Blue Cross/Blue shield and I use Doctors in Network so I only have to deal with co-payments.
I guess I would need a better understanding on how your doctors are picked that can save cost and also how this can work with non profits that fall under 29 different types such as 501c3 or 501c6 for example. We have 2 Powerwashing org’s that one is a 501c3(PWNA) & a 501c6(UAMCC). Religion falls under 501c3.
Another thing I would be curious in knowing is can you get a better group deal thru a corporation such as the PWRA compared to the non profits if there memberships were all the same? On a guess it would fall into how many members you can get interested in this no matter if it’s a for or non profit.
Probably still need the membership numbers to be in the many thousands to get what your looking for.
With Samaritan Ministries there are no doctor networks. Essentially everything is out of network. You go in as a “cash” payer, all my local clinics I’ve ever used except one offer a discount (usually around 30%) for paying in full. The one that didn’t was a midwifery clinic that was already about half the price of the obgyn clinics. You just send your bills into the ministry and they “publish it” which means certain members are assigned to send you their share to cover your bills. The advantage is that as long as the medical need is publishable (under some basic ministry guidelines) then you can shop for care wherever you want.
