Re: Insurance options for 1099 gigs

Reeve,

1099 is sometimes the only option when employers use recruiting companies
to do a contract-to-hire. Fortunately, most of the recruiters now offer a
W2 option, which saves the self-employment tax, but they won't pay for any
benefits that they offer the W2 "employees". (The other forgotten benefit
is that, as a W2 employee, you are eligible for unemployment benefits.)

The last time I was doing 1099, the lowest ACA policy I could find cost
$12k in annual premiums with a $12k deductible. In essence, I would have
shelled out $24k before I saw any benefit. Well, except for the "free"
annual physical, but I digress. I ended up signing up for a religious
healthshare for $5k annual "donation" and something like $3k-$4k
"deductible". Prior to ACA, I could have afforded to insure myself. Yay
for 35M folks who now have insurance, but I could not afford to shell out
up to $24k before getting any benefit.

- Dan

On Thu, Apr 20, 2023 at 9:14 PM Reeve <rfritchman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You're dealing with two issues: being on a 1099 and establishing a rate
that supports the cost of medical coverage you want. The 1099 life is not
for everybody, with medical insurance as a major consideration. Don't
forget you have to pay the employer's share of FICA and Medicare; it's
7.65%. There are a lot of reasons to have an employer!

ObamaCare currently covers 35,000,000 Americans and provides for
routine health care for a class of Americans struggling to pay for *any*
health
care. Should ACA provide catastrophic coverage? Probably...but Medicare
wasn't perfect when it was introduced. This may not be obvious but
regular medical and wellness care, made available to millions via ACA and
when received over a lifetime, significantly decreases the risk of
catastrophic illness, both pre- and post-Medicare. This doesn't help you
now, of course, but it's part of the ACA strategy: keep people healthy over
their lifetime.

It sounds like you need critical illness, not catastrophic illness,
coverage. But Medicare with good supplemental plans is the way to go--I've
had prostate cancer and my world-class treatment as a major teaching
hospital didn't cost me a dime. My wife had a knee replacement--didn't
cost me a dime. But you pay for Medicare and it's not cheap