Webmasters & Health Insurance
 

It's been awhile since I checked in...

I spent most of September playing the sax on a tour throughout Canada. I had a great time and made some decent money. But days after I returned I suddenly got sick and wound up in the hospital with no insurance. Ouch!

What do most webmasters do for insurance? Are there affordable programs available, or is everyone who's working full-time on the Net simply gambling with their health?

Just curious.

Fisty
First of all...where do you get your name from? And, is it just one fist?

Second...go to your local chamber of commerce. They are treated like a huge company and you can buy your insurance cheap through them.

ARS does offer health insurance to it's webmasters - you might want to poke around over there :)

i'm a gambler, no insurance for me :(

thanks for the tip about the Chamber of Commerce, i may have to look into it

Nope...a two-fisted maniac here. ;-p

Thanks for the tip, Jim. I'll check them out.

Fisty
|rasta|

Check here.....

http://www.nase.org

Luckily over here everybody is automaticly insured |bananna|

I had NASE for a bit.. then I got a routine physical a month ago and they stuck me with the $400 bill because they 'don't cover' physicals. So I dropped them. Their premiums were too high anyways. Now I have Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, widely known and trusted for like $70/mo.

Might wanna check out this site eHealthInsurance.com to research some insurance quotes.

Unless you're 100% sure you won't get in an accident tomorrow. |brick

I voiced a similar question on the boards about 4 years ago. Full-timers in the industry don't have the same benefits that someone working for a large corporation or in the public sector gets. Once I left my old career in health care behind me, I also gave up a full benefits package including a very good dental plan, health insurance, travel insurance, death benefits, and a retirement fund that was 50% matched by the hospital!

Yes, I gave all that up.... but 3 years ago I got myself an insurance/investment broker. This guy put together some great plans for me, an mix of RSP's, mutual funds, insurance investments, and various other investments, both short and long term. I feel a lot better these days about having enough backup incomes in case..... in case the unthinkable happens. |goodnight

I know a lot of webmasters that are making their money and just.... doing not much of anything with it other than living it up. If you're one of these types, you really need to start thinking about the future, and maybe putting something into some funds that include an insurance claus.

That's excellent advice, CD, and I'm definitely looking into the options available.

You never know when the years of boozin' and party-going will eventually catch up with your body. My short uninsured stint in the hospital cost me around $8,000.
|angry| |violin|

This country desperately needs universal health coverage, but that won't happen as long as our current resident-in-chief resides in office. So until then, to those webmasters who are squeaking by with little or no coverage: you're living on borrowed time.

Fisty
|rasta|

This is a rather personal subject for me and i wanted to chime in.

There is zero excuse for you not to become insured. Do anything you have to to get insurance. it is the single most important thing in the world.

I have over the past 5 years watched my savings dissapear, and go into the hands of doctors. I have watched my current income each month do the same. With the latest stretch of hospital bills due to the heart arrythima and atrial fibrilation i'm experiencing, i'm actually short this month. I'm having to save up cash to get a dye test and a stress test done later in december.

All of these things would have been partly covered through insurance. And yes, almost all of these things snuck up on me. One day I was fine, the next day I woke up broken and I've stayed that way for 5 years.

So get it done! there is no excuse! The resources are there :) Dont play around with that.

and if you got kids or a wife, insure them too. Get it taken care of :) its your number one priority for the rest of your life, trust me from someone who is on the bad end of this stick.

What Boogie said. :)

I'm in great health and have been most of my life, but shit happens. In 98 an ex of mine came to town and shot me six times, one of those if I can't have you no one will things. Anyway a whole lot of surgeries later I'm fine, but the bills came to over a million dollars. I'm very thankful that when I was renewing my contract in another business of mine I had them include medical insurance in my contract. Because of this I got very good medical care and was not left with killer bills.

Medical insurance is very important.