Re: Insurance options for 1099 gigs

Dan, I understand your points. However, nobody's under any obligation to
take a job where the terms of employment aren't satisfactory.

Let's clean up your logic on the expense of ACA coverage. It's going to be
a minimum of $12K/year, or $1K/month, which (these days) isn't a
surprisingly high amount (wait until you see how expensive Medicare is!).
You'll spend up to $12K if you get sick, so stay healthy: get your shots
(flu and COVID) and wear a face mask, not because The Man tells you to
but because the science is irrefutable and because masking up has been
hospital policy for 100 years. I run COVID vaccination clinics with
60-person teams and have yet to get COVID. So, your health care expenses
will range between $1K and $2K/month, with the possibility you could get
hammered in any one month by high expenses. I insured myself in the early
90's (pre-ACA) and Blue Cross was pricey but those were good days in the
AS/400 world.

Finding a group is clearly the best solution. Having an insured spouse is
another option, as is turning 65 (done both, recommend neither). A group
of enterprising 1099'ers (not necessarily just programmers) could get
together and form an LLC solely for medical insurance.

Speaking of employment in general: IMO there's not a shortage of
programmers. There is a shortage of good programmers and there is a
shortage of good employers. Headhunters make more money on turning over
1099's gigs than they do making good employee placements. Labor laws make
having employees hard work and firing employees even harder work, so I
understand the attraction of 1099'ers to employers. But the best talent
isn't going to work for the lowest wages and that's a message many IT
hiring managers ignore.

On Fri, Apr 21, 2023 at 7:26 PM Dan <dan27649@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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

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