The population of self employed in U.S. is a well stated figure of 23 million. If only the state of Massachusetts was brought into consideration, nearly 470,000 self-employed firms assist the economic development.
The diversity of self-employed businesses is large with people ranging from IT specialists to painters. While the number of such individuals would continue to rise, there’s one area that has not been targeted appropriately. That area is of healthcare and consists of a few innovative entrepreneurs as opposed to other domains like app development businesses.
When the Affordable Care Act was unveiled by President Obama, it was met with a mixed opinion. A number of analyses have been done, but few realize the benefits it could have with respect to entrepreneurs in healthcare. While technology allows geographic flexibility for new businesses, legislation is a major game changer.
Now with more access to quality, affordable health care means that it’s easier for people to go out on their own. The concept of job lock or being tied down in big firms would also be reduced.
This doesn't mean that only scientists or R&D people would have benefits. Any person can obtain benefits as there are healthcare contract management solutions available. The same principle applies for insurance plans with regard to the new policies.
Based upon information available, the Urban Institute did some calculations and reported about the efficacy of the Affordable Care Act with respect to self-employed business owners. Since the act ends discrimination against pre-existing conditions, as many as 1.5 million Americans can establish their own businesses.
Starting from January next year, self-employed people would be getting their insurance from the Health Insurance Marketplaces as assigned by the State.
The idea is that these plans that are on offer from the Insurance Marketplaces would have a multiple number of packages ranging from preventive & wellness services to maternity care and mental health services. So, the leverage with respect to percentage of costs is higher.
If the self-employed individuals opt for the private health coverage, they can get lower costs on monthly premiums. Based on income, business owners can qualify for lower, out of pocket costs. The benefit would be that they don’t have to pay for deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance.
There are certain key pieces of information with regard to the Affordable Care Act that entrepreneurs should know. The first one being that there are certain requirements to meet for the Individual Shared Responsibility provisions. There are three basic options consisting of basic health insurance coverage (monthly), qualify for an exemption or make an individual shared responsibility payment at the time of federal income tax return filing in 2015.
The idea is that if you spend less than three months without coverage and/or qualify for an exemption, the payment with tax return won’t be required.
The reason for mentioning this is that for numerous self-employed business owners, health coverage is a deciding factor. Many owners would rely on the information about insurance to decide whether to start their own business or not.
So, with the leverage of the Affordable Care Act, entrepreneurs can focus more on the viability and branding of their product/service instead of sweating for cost effective and quality health insurance.
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This featured post was brought to you by Jenna Smith.
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