Paying $120 bucks a month to cover potential injuries or finding affordable medical insurance and covering yourself for potential injuries is a definitely an important factor not only for yourself, your company, but also to prevent you from getting your co-founders sick.
It is true that if you're younger you are less likely to get sick. However, if you are under a substantial amount of stress, your immune defense will drop and your chances of getting sick increases. That's why you see a lot of people get sick during mid terms and exams.
So for all of you who are in a startup, I suggest you get at least 1000-2000mg of Vitamin C. Clinical trials have shown that taking 1000-2000mg (usually an 8oz glass of OJ, depending on type of OJ) of Vitamin C a day provides prophylactic use (prevents the occurrence) against acute stress induced illnesses.
I mean, prescriptions, elective treatment I can understand. But are you saying that you actually need to pay just to walk into an examination room?
First, the way things are structured tax-wise, C corporations get to deduct founder health insurance 100%, so that's the most tax-advantaged scenario. If you pay for your own personal health insurance or do it as a sole proprietorship, etc. you're basically getting a raw deal from Congress.
I'm in California, where basically any 2+ person small business that's been around about like 3-6 months is guaranteed group health insurance for its employees at no more than 10% over an index that represents what bigger companies pay. It's a sweet deal. So if you're in California and are going to go this route, you may want to incorporate ahead of time to start that clock ticking.
So basically the company pays for the insurance for the founders, even though they're not drawing a salary. And you get much more flexible options than through COBRA (naturally) or personal insurance.
They have two programs to deal with this- The first is Commonhealth, which provides free or subsidized health care to those who, in the last year, have made less than 300% of the federal poverty line. Many people who are currently students may be able to use this, and have their coverage be at no or very low cost.
For those people who don't qualify, As on May 1st there's a new program, Common Choice, which will be a private-public partnership, to try to bring 4 or 5 low-cost health care plans to everyone. Given that everyone in the state now needs health care, essentially the state is negotiating it's own group rates.
It's not a bad system, but it's still new. The Poor are covered for free. Employers with over 12 people are required to offer Health Insurance. People who work alone, or in a small startup, can get a plan for ~ $120/month.
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=hichomepage&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Qhic -Colin
1) Individual health insurance. Try http://www.ehealthinsurance.com or http://www.integra-insurance.com
2) Group insurance via a professional association. For example, IEEE: http://www.personal-plans.com/product/ieeeinsurance/ It's quite expensive, but the coverage is excellent
3) If you're incorporated or LLC, you might be able to get a small-business plan through Costco or some other provider
Next you'll be asking for a paycheck ...
I say get disaster health insurance (30 bucks a month) screw cobra. its too expensive.
if you're in MA, i hear you can get universal health care and suck on the teat of the taxpayer. If you're in CA, Blue shield is cheap. If you want bang for the buck, I suggest Kaiser.
Also helped that my girlfriend is about to become a surgeon so she and her friends had me pretty much covered for normal stuff.
Call an agent, fill out the forms... its all of a few hours of legwork. Welcome to running a business =).
(only available in CA and a few other states)
