I tried that. It did not work. ACA is not designed for entrepreneurs. When you are entrepreneur your cashflow projections are quite unreliable, and cannot be easily deduced from your previous income. But when you sign up for ACA plan you are asked all sorts of income questions to figure out what your subsidy is going to be. And worse of all, if you don't have any income (which is normal when you are starting a business), you cannot get any ACA plan - you are referred to Medicaid, so ACA is quite useless in that situation.<p>In my case we are without income for more than a year. The marketplace did not allow my family to sign up for any insurance and said to use Medicaid. However we are running out of savings this year, so two things will happen - either our business will pick up, or I find a regular job. I any case we will have jump of income and will not be eligible for Medicaid or any subsidy with ACA.<p>In my view, ACA intentions are good, but it is realized in entrepreneur unfriendly way and I cringe every time people say that how it is going to boost startups in this country.
Ironic, because the ACA has actually made things harder for early stage startups trying to setup insurance.<p>"Under the ACA and California regulations, beginning January 1, 2014, small businesses must have at least one "common law" employee who isn't the owner or owner's spouse (or domestic partner) to be eligible for small group coverage. As a result, the following will no longer be able to renew under a group plan..."<p><a href="http://info.kaiserpermanente.org/html/hcr_ca/owner_only_business.html" rel="nofollow">http://info.kaiserpermanente.org/html/hcr_ca/owner_only_busi...</a>
As a founder I can say ACA will make my wife happier during the early months of my future startup(s). Tying healthcare to employment is about the worst thing you can do for innovation. I'm glad those days are over.
Wait, so the goal of the ACA is to get young, 'healthy' people to buy insurance to subsidize the rest of us as we get older and less healthy. Geeks who launch startups pretty regularly end up without any income for a while, and as has been stated in other threads many times, this means you end up on Medicaid. Isn't this counterproductive? Wouldn't the ACA be better off if they get healthcare coverage but don't launch startups?
The logic of this argument seems flawed. I assume the goal here is to get young, uninsured people to buy health insurance. The argument here is that by buying an ACA plan, individuals will be more free to start their own business because they won't have to worry about getting sick without insurance. If I am risk averse, I will simply pursue full time employment that include health insurance benefits. If I am young and willing to forgo salary and benefits for a startup, why would I weigh the risk of getting sick while uninsured any more than the other risks involved in a business venture. Based on what I've seen of the costs of ACA plans, it seems like someone working in a ramen profitable startup would not even be able to afford the insurance offered.
All I know is I have business degree from California State university, I also worked at Health Net (an HMO provider in California, and Tricare provider at the time in the East coast) and did medical analytics systems that helped improve patient outcomes, both for facility care and chronic care. I now work for Bank of America and I work in the department that is untangling the mess of the toxic assets (I technically work for Countrywide, if that helps). Oh, and I develop software for a living.<p>I have not the foggiest idea how health care works in America anymore. It has become so complicated, so byzantine, that there's no possible way it could be fair, as some get lucky, and some don't, and there's little anyone can do about it anymore. All I see it doing is feeding a massive bureaucracy, at inordinately high costs.<p>And this is supposed to be the solution?
Love the guy at the end who assumed "geeks" are too stupid and introverted to be the "business leaders" that can be "entrepreneurs".
Obama (a racist IMO, see 'Trayvon could be my son') is selling <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Ignagni" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Ignagni</a> project.<p>What can I do not to help?