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eBay To Offer Health Insurance
Logic Bomb writes "EBay has announced it will be offering group health coverage for "full time eBay merchants". Anyone who grosses over $1000/month in sales -- at least a whopping 80,000 users in good standing -- will be eligible to buy into a typical "employee" health plan. This is a big first in the Internet world. Full details from the LA Times." And the LA Times, trying to cop a pose from the NY Times, reqs a login.
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The important questions:
Will they allow you to give feedback to health providers in your area?
Can you pay with PayPal?
Will you be able to set up a doctor's appointment for organ removal and simultaneously list the spare kidney for sale?
What's your damage, Heather?
What happens if the reseve on your bid isn't met? Do you die?
I think we're seeing the eventual effects of the web that were severely disturbed by the dot-boom(bomb) phenomenon. Ebay is unquestionably _the_ online auction website and its full time merchants generate a significant amount of revenue for ebay. This further increases the incentive for many of these "marginal" merchants to go full time -- they can drop the job that they may have "just for the benefits" and furthermore, it may make dealing with some of Ebay's idiosyncracies a bit more palateable. About time! Hopefully, ebay will set a nice precedent for the rest of the industry.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Next they'll offer vacation benefits as well...and they have some featured time shares they could recommend...
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Something cleveras a small business trying to operate mainly on eBay (for credit card purposes), this is another step in proving how corporate they have become, and another step in eliminating the small sellers, which was the whole purpose of eBay to begin with, the access to COLLECTIBLES not mass-produced merchandise.
Many companies have independent contractors that are not employees, but qualify for benefits. You see this a lot in insurance sales, consulting agencies, legal firms, etc. I think this is wonderful for eBay to not only be this creative, but also to help maintain their position as the best
Click here or here.
Thats pretty cool. I just hope that porn sites start rewarding regular viewers with a Health Plan. Then maybe I'd be able to do something about my rapidly deteriorating eyesight!
http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
Don't be misled. Today is Chinese April Fools Day.
-3Suns
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The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Health insurance has always been a huge game of numbers and betting on the odds. Betting on the odds that you are, or aren't going to get sick, are or aren't going to need major medical, are or aren't going to need an operation, etc. And in that big game, the more people you have on the plan, the more likely you're going to find alot of people who pay you for insurance, but don't need those things.
..when will we get to have /. insurance? Any web-following then, with sufficient numbers, should be able to follow suit and get big discounts on a group plan. With enough people, you even get to have the nice and spiffy plans where you can pick the sort of benefits you want.
An insurance company is out to make money, just like you and me, who get a job to make money (or sell things on eBay in this case.) So, if you offer them a large customer base, 80,000 people, then that's a big enough market you start to drop your prices signifigantely.
This will be an interesting precident to set in the marketplace of health insurance. If it goes through and works,
Whose going to manage these benefits? Will eBay have a new department for assisting their people with benefit claims?
Hmm...imagine if http://www.yahoo.com/ or http://www.msn.com/ were able to follow suit and offer health insurance. Anyone else think there's a web-organization that can claim more members?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
I bid $200 a year for insurance.
Action closes 29/6/2002
Cruise TT
Houston Chronicle has the story available with no register.
I was talking to a Consultant- a sub-con who works for himself and he was commenting on the the differences between being a salaried employee and being a contractor.
I commented "it must stink paying for your own health coverage"- His response was that Health care coverage is nice, but not as expensive as everyone makes it seem. Actually the biggest expenses are that vacations are unpaid, and education costs are solely your own.
Insurance companies are always looking to make money and I'm sure they give volume discounts, just like everybody else! (who actually pays $1.50 for a resistor at radio shack?)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I can see it now. So many more people will now be hawking their wares on E-Bay in a desperate attempt to qualify for health insurance. The volume goes up. the quality goes down...
Oh wait, That's already happened.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I wouldn't do this, my friend's sister's cousin tried getting a surgeon on eBay. He seemed nice and said he had great deals on triple bypass surgery because a "friend's" practice was going under and he wanted to use up the remaining surgical supplies as soon as possible. But the next thing she knew, she woke up in a bathtub of ice with two scars on her back and a note that said "Dial 911 Immediately"!!!!
Dang, in too much of a hurry to go through the registration crap (-1; Didn't Follow Link) but it makes me wonder if someone's feedback rating ties in to this; could leaving negative feedback go from being an "inconcenience to doing business" to a healthcare threatening situation??
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Click here or here.
Will you be able to set up a doctor's appointment for organ removal and simultaneously list the spare kindey for sale?
I find that prospect likely. Afterall, Ebay does provide you with the necessary (unused) tools.
I think you missed a key point - It's only sellers who gross over $1k/month that eBay is offering this too, not eBay's entire userbase.
eBay takes a commission from every sale - So those sellers are far, far beyond even paying customers at many sites as far as the revenue they bring into the company.
Meanwhile, Yahoo and MSN are free services, or if they charge, they don't charge nearly as much as the amounts of commissions eBay skims from the qualifying classes of sellers.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If your single and just need insurance because your self-employed go with a major HMO. They won't cost you much at all, probably less than dealing with ebay's system.
Plus you don't need to be in good standing with ebay to use it.
"oh no sir, I'm sorry, we can't operate until you take the link to your webstore off your auction pages"
-BlingBlings Flossin it
I live in a small town of about 5,000. There's a junk dealer that turned into a full time e-bay seller. He makes money by handling all the e-bay stuff for people in the area. People drop off the stuff they want to sell, and he takes pictures of it and handles the shipping, all for a percentage of the sale price.
They probably will not cover any visits to a psychiatrist. Ebay explicitly prohibits any dealings involving drugs or shrunken heads.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
When you do need medical attention, let's say an operation, will it be out on EBay so doctors can bid on who should do it?
And no, they would not big higher than the previous one, but lower... ^_~
No employment is necessary. It's a group policy. The group is eBay sellers who sell more than $1000 a month, that's all. It is not unusual to have a group policy that is not employment-related.
What expense do you think eBay is writing off? I don't see anything in the article that suggests that eBay is paying any part of the premium for the insurance
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
This I feel is the start of the second Internet boom, just this one will be for real. All the companies with no hope of making a profit online are gone. The ones that are left either make money, or at least have a pile of cash they are sitting on.
Buying your couch online is out...earth to owner, couches cost A LOT more to ship than books, and people want to sit in them first. Commerce on the web that makes sense is in. eBay is probably the first in the second stream of successful internet companies to start gaining attention.
Can't wait to see more real profits from the internet...
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
the LA Times, trying to cop a pose from the NY Times, reqs a login.
I found myself asking these questions:
In the end, I'm left with the impression that this is just a young kid editing a web page who wants to use a clever turn of phrase he heard. It adds nothing to the story; it takes away much.
Just because ebay is offering group insurance to this group of individuals does not mean that it's costing ebay anything. Other groups, such as owner-operator truckers have plans available to them for being members of a group.
Chamber of Commerce plans do the same thing for small businesses. The group buying power is what helps lower the rates.
So this insurance still ends up costing the Power Sellers more per month than most plans they would get as employees, because ebay isn't pitching in the 50-70% that many employers do.
Since I doubt that most of theses sellers declare thier full income from ebay, I wonder if the IRS will attempt to use this to get a listing of thoses people.
TRADER: Honestly, how can you tell if you have health insurance that is good through eBay?
eBay SUPPORT: There is a BIG GOLD STAR next to their name.
TRADER: Oh. Okay... cool. Fine by me.
I'm just waiting for eBay to start offering sick days and paid vacation so I can quit my day job.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why bother...
Read about it on CNET without the hassle.
How to Download YouTube Videos
The 'why' part is obvious (to me). The perception in the eBay community has been that the wholesalers are taking over and pushing the independent sellers out. eBay is attempting to stem a revolt and/or mass migration to another auction site.
It may seem like 1K/month in sales is a lot but compared to the liquidators who sell there, it isn't. eBay needs those 80,000 Power Sellers to be able to keep selling too.
My guess is that this arrangement won't cost eBay much, if any, money from their own pocket. I saw no mention that they are going to co-pay for the insurance. But, they've made it possible for the full-time eBay dealer to get decent group insurance. Not a bad incentive to stay with eBay.
What do you think? Health insurance companies are looking for targeted groups; this one is largly male, under the age of 50, and in a rather 'soft' industry where on-the-job injuries (except carpel tunnel) are not that common.
I could use it...
So I have to keep my account in good standing? That means if some malichious little brat decides he doesn't like me and makes up all sorts of slander and negative feedback I can lose my eBay healt insurance? Or by good standing do they simply mean paying my auctions fees? Anyone have any input?
Just remember that if you signed up with eBay's health insurance, you've probably signed up with the lowest bidder. :)
- Serge Wroclawski
To all those wondering how auction sellers qualify as employees -- a quick "find text" in the article doesn't turn up any form of the word "employ".
This is simply a group policy, like those you can get thru the National Association of the Self-Employed, or dozens of other small-business and "group" organizations.
All you need for group discounts is a large group -- they don't have to be co-workers. E-Bay isn't contributing to the funds.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I rarely laugh out loud when I read stuff, but for some reason I found that incredibly funny =).
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Ebay to Insurance company: "We have the names and addresses of 80,000+ people that spend so much time on our site, they probably don't have a real job or benefits."
Insurance Company to Ebay: "Cool. We'll call them a group and give you 5% of the premiums that they pay for the first 5 years"
Next Step. Big announcement.
SM MBL-VIR looking 4 SIG 4 LTR. must be DDF, no 420, SD ok.
Um. This is part of their program to help out the little guy. Your sense of scale is a little off here. The "big guys" here are Disney and IBM.
Do you really think someone who's making $1000 a month gross is not a little guy?
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
How do you suggest that they "bring back the old eBay service"?
They started a medium that turned out to be wildly popular, and I'm sure that [insert company name here] noticed that a lot of people were turning to eBay to buy the same products. Who can blame them (the company) for auctioning directly on eBay also?
What's eBay supposed to do? Only allow individuals? Hah! I'm sure they have no plans to kill half of their revenue stream anytime in the near future. I say bravo to eBay for proving that it is possible to be profitable on the Internet.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
There's a pretty simple profit motive here, too. Being known as the biggest and best doesn't mean you're done. Being the biggest and best is a hard spot to keep in most fields, and a move like this increases the incentive to sell on eBay, particularly when other companies like Yahoo! are trying to get a sizable percentage of the online auction market.
So the motive is: In order to attract sales, one must attract sellers.
Even top dog needs to work to stay that way.
In which case they will see their revenue dry up very quickly as more and more people notice that e-Bay "deals" tend to cost them more in terms of price paid and the risk inherent in online trading. We'll see how long before former e-Bay addicts start leaving the service in droves. There are already alternative bidding sites that don't let spammers in.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
> 1. Why do I need to be told a login is required? Won't I find that out soon enough?
I would waste more time trying to load a slashdotted page than reading a sentence fragment and deciding that since I'm not going to register anyway I might as well just go to the comments and hope someone has whored the story.
I'm of mixed opinion on the reference. On one hand, it's childish and, as you indicated, is trying to be "hip". On the other hand, I'd rather have bad personality than none at all. I view slashdot as a community, not a newsfeed. If I want a newsfeed, I can check out Newsforge or C|Net or CNN's Tech section and get it there. I come to Slashdot because of the (sometimes) insightful commentary coming from people who know more than I do about a subject, and the occasional amusement from some troll who has been modded up. Sense of aquaitance is important. I don't want hemos and cmdtaco and whoever aloof from Slashdot's user base (even though they sometimes seem to be from themselves) - the site looses a lot of its appeal because it becomes just another newsfeed I'll check a few times a day.
Now you can get insurance to cover your doctors visit to take care of what you caught from your other eBay purchases.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
$1000 a month is a fairly substantial amount, in my opinion. I wouldn't want to try to support a family on it, but a moderately sized shared apartment and a modest diet, along with average bills and even some luxuries (high-speed 'net access, cable television, and the occasional unneeded purchase) come in well under $700 a month in my budget.
:)
It's not living "the American dream" (ahem), but it's low-impact and quite comfortable. The best part of living on the cheap is not slaving away in an office for 40+ hours a week.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Not to hardware warehouses. No.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Why do I need to be told a login is required? Won't I find that out soon enough?
Saves me a wasted click. Why should I go to the LA Times' site, and then be turned away due to a stupid 'free registration' policy? Wouldn't you want to know if a store is open or closed before you leave your house and head for it?
Why reference the NYTimes?
You must be new around here. The NYT's useless policy has been mentioned many times, and people have implemented trivial workarounds. And LAT has switched to this 'free registration' thing recently.
What's this "coping a pose" reference?
What are you, a prude?
Is the LATimes copying from the NYTimes...
Seeing that NYT has had this 'free registration' BS for years, and LAT just started doing this, you make the call. (I hope 'BS' is not too hip for you...)
Learn to read. The italics stuff is that submitted by the submitter; the non-italics text is the editor's opinion/remarks . It is plain as daylight. Maybe you should lurk here longer?
Oh, and by the way: welcome to Slashdot! Next time, pick a name and post using that name.
Actually, I think it's a teriffic idea - if you can pull it off. For years, I've wished I could open up some type of online store and earn enough money with it to make it a living. It never seemed very realistic though. I don't have the starting capital to buy much inventory to sell, and I can't think of any category of product that someone else isn't already selling online for great prices.
eBay, on the other hand, allows someone to sell an endless variety of items from a central site that's guaranteed to get more potential buyers viewing a given listing than almost any other method.
People can and do make livings off eBay. I've seen these folks interviewed on the news before. Typically, they specialize in some sort of collectible or craft; items that have very high profit margins and low production costs.
So no, you probably won't have much of a life if you try to live off of selling used computers on eBay... If you build you own unique furniture though, you just might have something.
Maybe I can shed some light on this subject. I worked in the actuarial department of a major life insurer, so I have some expertise in this subject.
First of all, you don't have to be an employer to get group insurance rates. All that you have to have is a group of people who are organized for some purpose OTHER THAN purchasing insurance. Most commonly, this is a group of people who work for a particular employer. However, there are other groups that offer group insurance (trade associations, unions, chambers of commerce).
The reason for the organization requirement is because of ADVERSE SELECTION. Adverse selection is where a person purchases insurance because he or she knows that it will be needed in the near future (bad health, pending surgery, etc). Insurance companies hate this because if too many people do this, they will go out of business and nobody will get insurance. This is why companies give you medical exams, don't cover pre-existing conditions, etc when buying an individual insurance policy.
The advantage of group insurance is that because entry into the group is limited to certain people, it is less likely that adverse selection will occur. Because people become members of the group for a reason not having anything to do with buying insurance, you probably won't get people joining just to get the health benefits. Usually you don't have to submit to a health exam to get group insurance. Also, pre-existing conditions are usually covered (with possible a short waiting period). If eBay opened the group membership to everyone, then membership would likely get flooded with sick people looking for the insurance benefits. This would drive up the costs of offering the insurance, and the insurer would probably cancel the policy (or increase the premium rates to much higher levels).
There are other things that insurers do to protect themselves from adverse selection. Group policies often have minimum enrollment requirements. The plan sponsor has to guarantee that a certain percentage of members gets the policy. This is to prevent the case where only the "sick" people in the group sign up. They want to make sure that the people who sign up are a good representative sample of the group. They also have enrollment periods where members can only sign up for the policy during a particular time period. Again, this prevents people from signing up just as they are entering the operating room. Finally, insurers adjust the group premiums from year to year, based upon the claim amount incurred by the group. This allows them to modify the premium if the group turns out to be less healthy than they originally thought.
One of the arguments in favor of nationalized health care is that everybody would be part of one big "group", so there will be maximum risk sharing. Thus, costs would be divided up evenly, as you say. Of course, given the business and political climate in the U.S., it isn't likely to happen any time soon!
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
1:Saves you a trip to LAT if you don't plan to register.
:)
2:Yes.
3:Yes.
4:Yes (not the other way around).
5:No.
6:That's what the different fonts are for. You'll get used to it if you hang around here for a while.
I'm left with the impression that this is just a young kid editing a web page
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