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Self Employment Tips For Lowering Your Health Care Costs<
> Planning Your Career

One of the most important decisions we make in our lives involves our careers. More than just having a job, a career is a life choice, a journey that we choose for ourselves for gainful employment and fulfillment of our lives. For many people, planning a career begins right after high school when deciding on which college to attend and what courses to take. For others, career planning takes place a little later in life, perhaps after having settled a family and a home.

Planning your career is not too dissimilar to planning a dinner party. There are preparations that need to be made if your dinner party is to be a success. The same preparations need to be made for your career. Look at your career as if it were a ladder, you dont start at the top of the ladder instantly, you work your way up from the bottom or near bottom to get to where you want to be - at the top.

One of the first decisions you need to make is to decide on the career you wish to follow. Researching the career field prior to any further decision making is key. Find out what necessary steps you will need to take in the way of education, certification and experience to get to the pinnacle of your career.

Talking with professionals in the career field of your choice can help you find out and decide which path is best for you to take on your way to the career of your dreams.
Look Well Into the Future When Career Planning

Although the initial stages of career planning are crucial to success, looking well into the future when career planning is essential if that success is going to be maintained. Careers change, the market changes, the economy changes. If you want to make sure that you remain a hot commodity in your career, you need to make sure that you can roll with the punches.

The best way to look into the future, you must start by looking into the past. What have been the trends of your industry? Where has its competition come from in the past? What companies have survived and which haven’t? Why?

Next, look at the current state of the new industry in which you hope to work and ask the same questions. Choose case studies in the form of major companies. Find out who the key players are in these companies and check out their career path. What did they do after school and entry level positions? Read business journals and check out industry forums online. Where is the current threat coming from? What are people saying about the future of the industry? How will that affect your ability to get a job in your chosen career and keep it five, ten, twenty years down the road?

Now, look at both of these groups of facts and consider your future. What areas will you need to acquire frequent updates on information and skills in order to maintain your position and move up? A certain amount of critical thinking is necessary to prepare yourself for the possible twists and turns of the market as it concerns your chosen career. By assessing the past, taking note of the present, and planning for the future, you will have a much higher chance of not only holding onto your new career but excelling at it as well.

THE BAD NEWS
If you’re one or the growing ranks of Americans who are self employed, you know how expensive it is to get comprehensive health care coverage. Oh sure, it’s available… just not at the same price that large businesses pay as they qualify for group rates.

Worse yet, the premiums which small businesses (less than 200 employees) have for heath insurance coverage is increasing at twice the rate that it’s increasing for large (500+) employees according to William M. Mercer Inc. (www.wmmercer.com), a consulting firm specializing in employee benefits. Not surprisingly, an estimated 40 percent of small-business owners do without insurance, according to the Insurance Information Institute (www.iii.org), because they believe they can’t afford it.

Because of their high price, too many self employed individuals settle for health coverage that is inadequate. Such business people are threatening not only themself and their family’s health, but also their business’ very existence should they ever become injured or seriously ill.

THE GOOD NEWS
If you’re planning to leave or recently have left full-time paid employment, you can still retain your existing health insurance thanks to a law known as COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) of 1985. COBRA can provide a bridge for the newly self-employed as it allows you to retain the same insurance coverage at the same price that you had before. As a former employee using COBRA, you have to pay the full premium that your employer was previously paying or supplementing. That is still cheaper than an individual policy, since the coverage is purchased at a group rate. When it expires, you have the choice to continue with that same plan — at an individual rate.

The problem is that COBRA only lasts 18 months, and after that those who are self employed are on their own. However, there are some options that self employed business people have to reduce how much they pay for health care coverage. These are:

1. Use The Internet To Become Better Informed
Whether shopping for the lowest health insurance rates or wanting to ask medical questions of experts, learning to do research on the internet can make you a more informed consumer, thus bettering your chances of lowering your health care costs. The better educated you are about health care, the more you can avoid unnecessary and/or expensive medical insurance.

2. Get Coverage From Your Employed Spouse
A common and easy way to get long term health coverage is to add yourself to your employed spouse’s existing policy, and use the extra premiums you’ll have to pay as a tax-write off, of course.

3. Join With Other Self Employed People
There are strength in numbers so investigate joining a professional or trade organization that offers its members coverage at a group rate discount. Two such groups are the National Federation of Independent Business (www.nfib.com) and the National Association for the Self-Employed (www.nase.org). However, before joining a group just for its health insurance plan, one should consider the cost of membership in addition to the insurance premiums.

4. Lower Your Level Of Health Insurance Coverage
If you are healthy and don’t require much medical care, why give the money to the insurance company for low-cost claims when you could keep it yourself? If you choose a higher deductible or a higher co-pay, the money you save in monthly premiums might actually be more than you spend out of your pocket in a year.

5. Reduce Your Chances of Getting Sick
You know the old saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure? Well, this is especially true when it comes to reducing your health care costs. According to Marilyn Furry (Associate Professor Of Extension Education - Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences), the best advice to follow to avoid high health insurance premiums as well as out-of-pocket health care expenses is to do the following:

(a) Take advantage of free health screenings at local clinics, hospitals or health fairs
(b) Know early warning signs of potential health problems and consult a physician ASAP
(c) Compare fees and costs for medical, pharmacy and surgical procedures
(d) Keep accurate medical expenses records so you can itemize these deductions on your taxes

6. Join A Discount Health Benefits Club
Perhaps the best way to cover any existing gaps in your health insurance is to join what is known as a Discount Health Benefits Club such as Ameriplan (www.ameriplan.com) or MediSavers (www.medisaver.com). These clubs offer their membership savings on prescription drugs, dental visits and other health services by charging a fee to connect members with doctors, dentists, vision centers, and chiropractors.

Rising medical insurance costs force many self employed professionals to eliminate coverage in areas like dental, vision and prescription drugs. But with these areas covered when one joins s discount health benefits club, any gaps in the self employed dental, vision and prescription drug coverage are eliminated.

Also, because ‘discounted health benefits’ aren’t insurance, they can be used in conjunction with existing health insurance to lower certain costs and even supplement coverage for both the self employed as well as the self insured. Due to their ability to supplement existing health insurance, discount health benefit clubs must be considered a strong health care alternative for the self employed.

AS MORE PEOPLE BECOME SELF-EMPLOYED, MORE OPTIONS WILL APPEAR
Perhaps the best advice a self employed person can get on reducing their health care expenses is to keep informed about changes in the small-business benefits arena. Organizations such as Working Today (www.workingtoday.org) and the National Association for the Self-Employed (www.nase.org) are building networks and lobbying Congress to improve access to better health and retirement plans for independent professionals. Consider lending your voice to theirs and maybe someone will here you.

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