Talking About Health Insurance at the Library

Tonight I joined many other members of Hidden-tech to learn about health insurance for small businesses in Massachusetts. There is a state program that will subsidize most of your employee's monthly costs, it was presented by Simon Muil, a Brit who recalled his days using the single payer plan run by Britain. T

he audience of mostly self-employed computer people had lots of questions, the panel included Ellen Story, a State Rep from Amherst, a sharp guy in a suit from Wellington Management, who handles company health plans, and a woman from the Nathan Agencies. All of these folks were weary about the decrease in service and increase in prices, weary because every year the prices go up, and they probably get complaints from their clients about it.

Adding a health plan for three people at GoNOMAD will be a big step. If I can get the state of MA to help pay, that makes it a little easier for us to offer it. A woman stood up and said she only wanted catastrophic insurance, that she didn't want to pay five hundred twenty five dollars a month to go to the doctor. She'd rather pay that out of her own pocket.

One person in the group suggested that if we got a Single Payer Health plan, deducted from our paychecks, then it would be better than the patchwork system we have now, where so many people are unisured, and go to the emergency room...and we end up paying, as taxpayers, in a less direct way. She said it's like a car insurance program. If you crash they pay, but you still have to put the gas and the oil in the tank.