Ask Slashdot: IT Contractors, How's Your Health Insurance?

An anonymous reader writes "In the tech industry, as the economy continues its downturn, IT folks in my circles who were either laid off or let go are turning to contract work to pay their bills. Layoffs and a decline in tech jobs has affected older IT workers the most. Many of us find it more lucrative and enjoyable in the long run and leave the world of cubicles forever. However, there is much to be said for working for a large company or corporation, and health insurance is one of the benefits we value most. But what happens to those who find themselves in this position at mid-career or later in life? Hopefully they have accumulated enough savings or have enough money in an HSA to survive a major medical emergency. Unfortunately, many do not and some find themselves in dire straits with their lives depending on others for help. I have been working IT contracts mostly now for the past 11 years and I've done very well. I belong to a group insurance plan and the coverage is decent, but as I get older, premiums and copays go up and coverage goes down. If you work contracts exclusively, what do you think is the best plan for insurance? Any preferences?"

Comments

Best Preference

[maroberts]

Have UK Citizenship

Re:Best Preference

[girlintraining]

Have UK Citizenship

Or Canada, Spain, Mexico... a lot of countries offer varying degrees and types of nationalized healthcare. The United States stands alone in being the only G8 country that lacks it.

Re:Best Preference

[fm6]

My mother actually traveled to Canada for cataract surgery. She was no longer a Canadian citizen, but she was eligible as a recipient of the Canadian equivalent of Social Security.

She could have had it done under Medicare, but would have had to cover huge co-payments.

Re:Best Preference

[Sir_Sri]

Please subtract Canada and the UK.

Please stop watching fox news.

The latest story I heard is that the UK is cutting doctor salaries (in order to balance the government budget) and it's leading to many doctors quitting

Probably, the conservatives are gutting the local trusts or whatever they're called too. But that doesn't mean there's going to be a massive shortage of doctors in the UK. When you make cuts and those doctors can pack up an move to switzerland or the US inevitably some will. And then you expand immigration or raise salaries and attract a bunch more. This isn't anything new. The UK can still attract doctors from eastern europe for example.

But as a canadian, there is no way in hell I would trade what we have here for the US system. For the french system or the british system, sure, they have different cost/benefit tradeoffs, but all of us provide on average better care, for less money than the US, and if you're in the US and you care about healthcare the answer is to leave.

After reading the various horror stories of patients unable to find a doctor, or being left to die in waiting rooms, or denied basic preventative measures like PAP smears

The reason you hear about is because we take these things very very seriously. Governments and government agencies are held accountable when they fuck up like this. It does happen, sometimes intentionally so too, as I say with the example of the conservatives in the UK, or with the 'voucher' programme proposed by Paul Ryan for Medicare, when you elect politicians they have a platform they run on for healthcare, sometimes that's good, sometimes bad, and most of the time somewhere inbetween.

And YES I know you've had nothing but great service in your CA or UK care.

No, you really don't understand. Between canada and the UK there are 95 million people, within canada each province runs it's own healthcare service under federal law, in the UK the NHS covers england and wales and northern ireland but not scotland I believe. Inevitably there will be things that go wrong, and an underfunded department will perform as well as any under funded agency will, some doctors are corrupt, some nurses are incompetent, some places can't attract enough qualified people especially in rural canada there aren't going to magically people who want to move 2 hours from the nearest walmart to provide healthcare etc.

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf is pretty much the definitive guide to healthcare outcomes and assessment methodology, I suggest you read that. Seriously. It's not particularly complicated. If you're scared of reading page 18 has the table summary that's important.

That combines coverage, quality and spending into a single index. The French and Italians have the best systems overall (along with san marino) even though they have very different spending profiles.

Now in the long run 'Obamacare' which is basically a copy of the swiss system should be reasonably be expected to have similiar costs to canada (around 11.5% of GDP today), and produce better outcomes (as the swiss system does). So in 2016 or 2017 you might have an argument. But english canada only judges our healthcare system compared to the US, so we pay less, and have better outcomes, and as long that's true no one is going to rock the boat, even though there are better options available. And I'll point out that the swiss system is worse than the UK on both cost and coverage, so theirs isn't really the system you want to copy.

You hear horror stories from our healthcare systems because we actually care about these things as problems that need to be solved. In the US healthcare system you have one party base that advocates "let them die" and 'vouchers' as a policy platform, so we're not even having the same debate. In the US the question is whether or not you should even try to cover people, in canada in the UK it is a question of how best to do that, and who is responsible when something goes wrong.

Re:Best Preference

[jjohnson]

And yet, by every aggregate measure of health outcomes, Canada and the UK do far, far better than the U.S. Longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, fewer complications, shorter hospital stays... It's almost like you're being fed bullshit propaganda slandering the two nearest examples of health care systems that work vastly better than your own.

Just buy insurance...it's honestly that simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

I contracted for 2 years. During that time, I purchased health insurance for myself, wife and 3 children from a health insurance company. It's actually really easy. I comparison shopped online, picked an insurer with a plan that had good coverage at a rate I could afford, called them up and bought a policy. The insurer did a check of our medical histories, which took about a week, and involved them calling doctors. Fine. The policy took effect about 2 weeks after the medical checks were complete.

I was paying about $300 / mo for myself, wife and my 3 kids - and that includes a kid with autism, which the insurer could not turn down, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (GObama! Sorry, had to :) ). They did charge me $10 extra a month for my autistic child, but that seemed more than reasonable to me. $300 / mo might seem high, but it's only about $50 more than what I pay when getting insurance through an employer. The copays were competitive ($10 prescriptions, $30 doctor visits and such). The other deductibles, co-insurance, etc were a bit higher, but not insanely higher than what you'd see through a plan from an employer.

There was one thing that stunk about the plan, though - if my wife got pregnant, the insurer would drop her coverage. That sucks. In fact, I couldn't find a single insurer that would cover pregnancy - nor would they cover things like IUD, birth control pills, etc. Basically everything you'd typically associate with a woman's health was completely not covered, which is ridiculous.

Once the Affordable Care Act goes completely "live" in 2014, though, insurers won't be able to deny women health coverage if they're pregnant, and they'll have to cover basic women's health care. Anyhow, wasn't trying to make this a political statement, it's just interesting how broken the current system is for women.

Re:After 20+ years of contracting...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Actually, expect LESS increases due to "Obama Care"

The reason is more people will be paying in to plans because they have to by law.

I've paid for my own health care since I was 18. I require it due to having moderate to severe Psoriasis. I pay $1300 a month right now for Blue Cross Blue Shield in NY. Yes... Its fucking insane.

The same plan was $250 a month 15 years ago.

Every year they want to increase it about $150.

The theory with Obama Care is more people will now have to pay for a plan so more people paying in, should slow the increase in rates. However we will see if that happens in practice.

Initially the democrats fought for control over price increases but republicans and the insurance lobbyists obviously won that battle.

This country is out of control insane. If you are sick, you better be rich, or just die. That is how our country looks at people. We are burdens on society, and they would rather us all die than provide some kind of help. That is a fact.

America is a disgusting fucking country that I am ashamed to say I belong to. We simply do not care about doing the right thing.

Obama Care is a step in the right direction but its been corrupted by the insurance industry. The public option was eliminated. Single Payer universal Not for Profit insurance wasnt even considered. Big Money runs this place... and Big money sees us all as a burden and thinks the sick should simply die.

If you want health insurance in America. Either you have to pay very high monthly rates, or simply move to another country.

Vote for People Who Support Single Payer

[reallocate]

Seriously.

When health insurance and health care are sold as a for-profit products, it is inevitable that some people will go without insurance and/or care. Why? Because they can't pay enough to make it profitable to sell to them. The market is fine and all, but it can't survive without profit.

Your best bet now is to look very hard for some form of group insurance. The older you are, the greater the probability you will succumb to somthing that requires surgery and/or long-term treatment/rehabilitation. i.e., things that generate 6-figure bills. (Think about things happening that cost $500,000 to deal with. Think about pills that cost $100 a pop.) Better to have good coverage for that eventuality and poor coverage of things like routine doctor visits than vice-versa.