Cafe Stile

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Tying health insurance to employment worked incredibly well before the government started greatly incentivizing the choice to not work. I mean shite your employer pays half or more of your health insurance premium leaving you with a small portion of what you would pay on the marketplace and that deduction is tax free most of the time.

However, you could always use that extra 15000 to pay for your Obamacare plan that you can get when you become a contractor.

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I also feel like it traps people. Think about how many people would open up their own businesses or be partners in small businesses if insurance wasn't an issue.

I would honestly like to see more employers give people the option to have a higher wage and forfeit all benefits.

To me it's nothing to do with whether or not people want to work. Honestly how anyone is surviving right now without working is beyond me.

On that note, for those of you who have gone the independent contractor route what should I know? It's just me working as an independent contractor for a transportation company. Do I need to look at setting up an LLC or S Corp just for myself if I go this route?

Question is pretty simple but it's causing me a lot of heartache. I will say if there is one thing COVID-19 has changed me on it's my view of health insurance. I don't think health insurance should be 100% free and run by the government but as a society we have to get away from health insurance being tied to employment. I believe the U.S. gets a lot more right than it gets wrong but to me it's the biggest thing by far IMO we get wrong.

The reason I bring this up is my employment situation. I have a traditional M-F 8:45-5:15 HR job that gives me full health insurance and it's honestly pretty good insurance. I utterly hate my job though and I do feel like it's killing me inside. It's caused me so much anxiety lately that I've called out 2 straight days which isn't like me.

I am single and have no kids so that's a positive and negative. On the positive side it means no one is relying on me for health insurance outside of myself. On the negative side it means, unlike married people, I can't just go on a spouse policy.

I have worked for a company occasionally on the side where I make significantly better money with significantly less stress. I would most likely make $20-$25,000 more in that job. At the absolute worse I would make $15,000 more at the job. I like the people better and it's just a better company. The problem is I would be an independent contractor and not an employee. While that gives me additional flexibility it also means I would be paying my own taxes and not be provided any type of health insurance.

This post is two fold. One is anyone else here an independent contractor? What would you recommend? Two is that the health care being tied to employment really hurts to flexibility of U.S. citizens. People wonder why we don't take as many risks in the U.S., this is why. Without health care being provided by employers we could all be far more entrepreneurial and I think mental health issues would go down tremendously. Would you agree with that assessment?