Finally! Health insurance for free agents!
It’s long been a frustration for individual entrepreneurs (aka free agents) who have to pay a lot more to get less health insurance than that of larger companies.
This is no longer the case for the independents and free agents in urban downtowns! Thanks to the National Main Street Center, a nonprofit that assisted well over 2000 main streets across the country. They helped initiate the National Trust Insurance Services which provides health insurance to main street tenants at competitive premiums and benefits as corporations have for their employees. For instance, it dropped my insurance premiums from $121 to $93 with the same deductible, yet increasing coverage from 80% to 100% – keeping my same doctor.
The bottom line is this is great news for any local economy – it’s the individual entrepreneurs that are most responsible for any city’s job growth (outside of stealing other cities’ companies), so it’s certainly not in the local economy’s best interests to put them at a financial disadvantage.
Has insurance hampered you as a free agent? Speak your mind below…
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As always, I am impressed by the breadth and scope of cooltownstudios. I have continually cited this site as a resource for people who are having difficulty understanding the comprehensive nature of creative community development. This post about health insurance is great- thanks for the information.
Here is a link to the nature of the health insurance woes in Maine- rather wonkish, but understandable:
http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=117491
The costs of premiums here puts us at a distinct comparative disadvantage. Not only is the US at a disadvantage in a global economy, but Maine is drastically higher. For my family, premiums as a free agent amount to about $2100/month. Gulp. So we’ve opted for the really high deductible, less coverage, at about $1000/month. Certainly puts a cramp in the cash flow, and opportunity costs of emergency funds for the deductible in a money market account impedes growth. Great information-I’ll certainly look into this!