Health insurance for self-employed artist

Ok - I’m back on that health insurance merry go round. Need to find
some sort of group I can join to get health insurance as a self-
employed artist. Any ideas? Must be a group since I can’t get
individual coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

What do other small jewelry businesses do?

Thanks!

Beth Wicker
Three Cats and a Dog Design Studio

Beth- If you are located on the west coast or in Hawaii I’d
recommend Kaiser. We joined after our health ins. went to $1200.00 a
month with a $3500.00 deductible.

With Kaiser we have a $2500.00 deductible with a monthly premium of
$652.00.

Kaiser is an old hand at the health maintenance biz and they do a
great job of controlling cost on their end. Still it’s kinda like
Costco or Walmart for health care. No frills. But after a childhood
of Military medicine, it’s pretty cushy to me.

Good luck.
Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com

Insurance varies by state so you need to check with your state
insurance department. Explore State Insurance Department Information | NAIC

Beth’s website showed SC so I clicked that state, then looked for
the consumer section. There are brochures for small employer and
individual insurance. http://www.doi.sc.gov/consumer/health.htm

Try the American Craft Council, NYC and ask the main office about
insurance. At one time, I thought they developed a program to cover
individual artists on a group basis. But don’t hold me to it.

Ruth Mary

Let me know too. I’ve bit the bullet and pay the state high risk pool
25% of my gross to stay insured because of a sub clinical (no
symptoms) pre existing condition. My wife pays 15% of my premium
because of no preex isting conditions. We both have medical savings
accounts (great tax break) and she uses more than twice of it each
year than I do. Seems like I work for the health insurance agencies
half the time I’m at my bench.

Gary

I’m staggered by what health insurance costs for you guys. I know the
NHS isn’t the best medical system in the world, but the costs you
quote for insurance are more than most British people pay each month
in tax (of which the NHS is part). And I’m pretty sure the private
insurance plans cost less than that over here - a quick look on a
comparison website showed nothing more than UKP 150 a month.

Particularly in an accident-prone industry like jewellery, that must
really hurt your cashflow. My advice? Move to England, we’ll look
after you :slight_smile:

Jamie
http://primitive.ganoksin.com

I'm staggered by what health insurance costs for you guys. 

What’s also staggering is what health care costs over here. I have
insurance (awesome insurance, partly because I work for a health
insurance company), but I recently calculated how much I would be
spending on my prescriptions if I had to pay retail.

I have more than a few chronic conditions, diabetes, asthma, high
blood pressure, high cholesterol, yadda-yadda-yadda, but nothing
“awful”, nothing that should be horribly expensive to treat.

Are you sitting down?

Just my prescriptions, not the doctor visits to get them refilled,
or the blood tests to make sure none of them are threatening to kill
me, would cost me $4500. PER MONTH.

I can’t give up my day job and dive entirely into my jewelry
business until we fix the whole mess, not unless I win the lottery
first, or convince Oprah that I’m The Next Best Thing. :wink:

I would like to offer this. I am covered by Medicare via an
HMO-Advantage plan. It really is good for me. What I want to offer
to those dealing with high prescription costs.

I take 3 prescribed generic medicines per day. I used Costco’s
Pharmacy after seeing a news program which showed wide differences
between pharmacies, and pharmacy chains.

This was very satisfactory for several years. One renewal a medicine
I take by choice increased drastically at Costco. I took a big hit
with that. Shortly after that I saw a program offered by WalMart
4/10. Basically it is $4.00 per generic for a 30 day supply, or
$10.00 for a 90 day supply. I went to investigate and saw that the
generic that had gotten so costly at Costco, was $10.00 for 90 days
at Walmart. Of course I changed to WalMart and have been very happy.

This year that same medication went off of formulary and again
became more expensive, I think $39.00 for 90 days, manageable. I
recently paid attention to my Explanation of Benefits for drugs, and
found the only medication appearing there was an antibiotic I
recently needed. My son had originally gone to pick it up for me,
but called saying it was $69.00. I declined to fill it. A few days
later I was picking up an alternate generic antibiotic, when I
queried the pharmacist why the other was so high. The pharmacy tech,
had neglected to apply my health insurance, so in the end I got the
originally prescribed antibiotic for a co-pay of $7.00.

Again, and this is very important for those who face the "donut"
each year. None of my generic prescribed medications dispensed by
WalMart appear on my insurance drug as a charge towards the donut.
Many cardiac or diabetic patients reach that donut, check to see if
they are on WalMart’s extensive list of generics with $4.00/$10.00
cost. That is what even non-insured people pay.

I had verbally told my physician about that, and today brought him
the EOB to see for himself. He said that would help many of his
patients. BTW, not even the $39.00 medicine draws against my
prescription allowance.

Hugs,
Terrie

Try the Freelancers Union: freelancersunion.org

Dianne

When Jamie suggested we move to England to lower our health
insurance, I t made me laugh. When my daughter moved to New Zealand
she purchased health insurance to cover more than the fully covered
accidental insurance.

At the same time she pulled up an all inclusive policy quote for me.
I told her that was a pretty good monthly rate for me and she
replied " no that’s for the year for you and Mom"

Gary