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  • From: gina.norman at nortelnetworks.com (Gina Norman)
  • Subject: [internetworkers]
  • Date: Tue Feb 25 11:45:20 2003

Caution-- the thing Beth was looking at is not a Medical Savings Account
(also known as a Flexible Spending Account) as you or I know it. (It threw
me too when I read the post)... they're calling it a "medical savings
account" in the sense that "we give you discounts on medical stuff you need"
NOT "we let you put away tax-sheltered $$ for unreimbursed medical expenses.

This, in and of itself, made me nervous, in that I wonder if they
deliberately used misleading terminology in order to get ppl whose friends
told them "Hey you should get a medical savings account. I got one -- it's
great."

FWIW, a real FSA or MSA is a Good Thing if you have high deductibles (or
frequent small ones! ;-)


-Gina

Gina Norman
Senior Manager, Global Web Governance
ginanorm AT nortelnetworks.com
919-905-4801 (ESN 355)
http://www.nortelnetworks.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Beckett [mailto:thomas AT tbeckett.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 11:21 AM
> To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [internetworkers]
>
>
> Beth -
>
> The IRS has an article on Medical Savings Accounts here:
> http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/page/0,,id%3D104275,00.html
> It spells out the benefits and limits. Basically, you can
> salt away a few thousand into an MSA each year tax free. You
> can withdraw from it only to pay medical and related expenses.
>
> In general, it is a good idea. Note that the "pilot program" for
> personal MSAs ends on 12/31/03.
>
> TaB
>
> > Like many people, I have unbelievably crappy health insurance.
> > Monumentally crappy. I plan to get something decent soon, but in the
> > immediate future, I have to have back surgery (again), so switching
> > to a better plan won't do me any good right now, thanks to the
> > ever-present pre-existing condition clause--I can't wait 12 months
> > to have this surgery--I need it as soon as possible.
> >
> > So I'll get a tiny bit of reimbursement from my current ins.
> > company. And I fell across this site yesterday. It's a "healthcare
> > savings program" that you can get even if you have insurance and
> > they cover all pre-existing conditions. Anybody out there know
> > anything about these "healthcare savings programs"? Good, bad, ugly?
> >
> > http://www.careentree.com
> >
> > For the record, I think "Care Entree" is a really dumb name for a
> > company.
> >
> > Beth
>
>
> ---
> Come and play at the InterNetWorkers Web site!
> http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/
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>From jim at ibang.com Tue Feb 25 13:08:14 2003
From: jim at ibang.com (Jim Allman)
Date: Tue Feb 25 13:09:00 2003
Subject: [internetworkers] health insurance for independents?
In-Reply-To: <20030225170206.4E0E420042 AT happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu>
Message-ID: <000901c2dcf8$dd6cf260$7001a8c0 AT portbridge.com>


> Like many people, I have unbelievably crappy health insurance.

On a related note...

I'm an independent contractor (S-corp, actually), and we've been
using Blue
Advantage. We're happy with them so far, but it seems pretty expensive.

I was recently looking at NASE (The Natl Assoc of Self-Employed),
after
hearing that they have swell group rates for a small business. I backed off
after a phone conversation with a pushy sales-dude and a bit of web
research. It looks like some of these associations are thinly-veiled sales
machines for major insurance companies, with no real price competition and
the ability to skirt state insurance regulations.

Has anyone had any experience with NASE, positive or negative? Or are
there
other providers of good health insurance for independents? (FWIW, our
general strategy for insurance is catastrophe coverage with high
deductibles. We save the difference in premiums and use it for the small
stuff.)

=jimA=




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