Health Insurance For Loofiers!

[Hesh Breakstone]

This is a discussion that I have been wanting to have because frankly I am personally pretty excited about a change here in US law.

Although I know that some will be capable of making this discussion political I ask that you please don't.  Instead I wanted to relate my own experiences with the health insurance topic, Lutherie, getting into the biz, etc. and not be a shill for the affordable care act aka Obamacare.

When I left the stinkin desk job and wanted passionately to someday hang out my shingle and do repair/restoration work the one single issue that I could not overcome and find a solution for was affordable health insurance.

In the states our insurance tends to be connected to our employment and as such doing anything unconventional or as an individual leaves one subject to the wild, wild west of brokered individual health plans.  These plans often sucked.... did not cover much of anything, and cost a fortune as well.  And you could be cancelled, capped, denied for previous conditions such as being nuts like me.

But no longer and this morning I ventured onto the Health Insurance Exchange and purchased the very best plan offered here in Michigan for less than half it's retail price.  I have pre-existing condition(s) as well and every quote that I received in the past was north of $2,200 monthly....  Now I'm enrolled in a "gold" plan that has to cover most everything, can't be cancelled, can't be capped for just under $395 a month!

There is more too.  Because I can now solve my own health insurance problem we, our business is in a position to provide meaningful work to others as well.  There are five of us in our business.

As such for those who ever fancied going pro, severing the bonds of corporate America, the health insurance issue is no longer impossible to solve.

I'm wondering if others here are seeing this new change in US law AND the availability of quality, affordable health insurance as I see it which is as something that is a pretty good deal for Luthiers?

[Frank Ford]

Well, of course things got political, and I suspect everyone had enough of a say in this, so it's time for everybody to get back to fixing guitars rather than trying to fix what we obviously can't.   And, I reckon I can't wade in with my own opinions here, so I'll close the thread.