No matter whether you’re an employee, operate your own small company, or employ hundreds of people as part of a large corporation, the complex and confusing issues surrounding the wide variety or corporate and private health insurance programs available affect all of us. [1] It is estimated that at the end of 2013 a scary 41 million Americans were uninsured and therefore would have had very limited access to healthcare and medical services. [2] The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has already reduced that number but it is still very high. Many people assume that those people without health insurance are unemployed, however that actually is not the case. According to corporate law many people do not have access to coverage through their jobs, either because they work for small companies that are not legally required to provide health insurance, or because they don’t work the amount of hours required by their company to receive their standard corporate health insurance coverage.
The Benefits of Going It Alone
If you are not covered by a corporate policy through your work place then health insurance programs can be very expensive. In fact, for many, the cost of providing your own independent health insurance is prohibitively expensive (which is why so many individuals across the country simply don’t have coverage). However there are some benefits of opting for independent private health insurance. One of these is that if you have an accident in the workplace or are the victim of any kind of medical malpractice then your job couldn’t be affected by pursuing the case in court.
Accidents can and do happen anywhere, but a large proportion of accidents each year happen in the work place. Statistics from the Occupational Health and Safety administration show that 4,405 workers died whilst on the job in their work places in 2013. [3] This figure doesn’t take into account the thousands of other workers who sustain injuries (some serious and some less serious) that don’t result in fatalities each year. Workplace accidents, often as a result of employer negligence, are a very real issue in the United States and something that every employee should be vigilant about. There is an obvious conflict of interest in making a personal injury claim after sustaining an accident at work or experiencing medical malpractice when receiving treatment for a non-work related injury if the health care provider you will be making a claim against and that you hold responsible for your injuries is provided by your employer, and therefore one can assume, has a close working relationship with your employer. If you do choose to make a personal injury claim as a result of an injury at work, or make a claim against your corporate health insurance and their partners as a result of their medical malpractice, then your employer is not able to fire you. However they can make your life very uncomfortable, and make your working environment feel much more difficult than it was previously.
Health Insurance When You Work For Yourself
An incredible 53 million people in America earn their living from freelancing and working for themselves. This adds an interesting dimension to injury claims in the work place if your work place doubles up as your home! It also adds a unique aspect when it comes to choosing the right health insurance policy. It’s important that, whether you work for yourself or are choosing private rather than corporate health insurance, that you don’t prioritize short term costs when looking for the right health insurance policy for you. That extra money might well be nice in your pocket right now, but in the long term you could end up spending much more than you need to, and that money might not be going towards the best quality standards of care and the most comprehensive amount of coverage.
Additional Reading
[1] “Everyone is worried about the Supreme Court’s latest dive into health care, The Sacramento Bee, http://www.sacbee.com/
[2] “Key facts about the uninsured population”, The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, http://kff.org/
[3] “Workplace injury, illness and fatality statistics”, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (United States Department of Labor), https://www.osha.gov/
[4] “Wise up Wednesday from Zane Benefits: Why Health Benefits are Important to You and Your Staff”, Dentistry IQ, http://www.dentistryiq.
[5] “What’s the most important cost to consider when picking a health plan?”, PBS News Hour, http://www.pbs.org/