Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:15:21 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Tackling Concerns of Independent Workers
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 03/25/13 21:40, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> How does the the Freelancers Union differ from the National
> Association for the Self-Employed?  I had medical insurance through
> the latter about 15 years ago.  When they raised their rates by over
> 20%, despite my never having filed a claim, I canceled, and I haven't
> had medical insurance since.

I have no idea. What I know is the article, and I've just joined - there
are no dues, just go there and sign up. I also *do* have health
insurance through both my job and my wife... but a few years ago, I had
COBRA, and in '04-05, I had *nothing*.

So I figured that it can't *possibly* hurt to post this, given all the
folks I know out of work.

Why ask *me* how it differs from a group I've never heard of? Go to
their site - I don't speak for them (well, that may change, but not yet).
<snip>
> The cost of insurance has gone way up since then, and if current
> trends continue, within a decade its median cost will exceed the
> median salary.  Its *value* has gone up by much less, if at all.
> US life expectancies are actually dropping.

Because the medical insurance industry is to make money, not keep anyone
healthy, and they buy legislators, wholesale.
>
> Since you don't want people bitching onlist, I'll keep my opinion
> of a "solution" to this serious problem that consists of making it
> illegal to not have insurance to myself.  I just hope nobody tells
> the president that in the Soviet Union they "solved" unemployment by
> making it a crime, and sentencing the jobless to work in the salt
> mines.  It might give him ideas.

Simple answer: if there wasn't a conspiracy to keep the US from having
it, we'd have what most folks wanted all along: Medicare for all.

mark

--
Let us say negotiation is not his forte. Ballmer is no more designed
for the art of persuasion than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on
wheels. - "Late Scores: Germany 1, M$ 0", John Naughton, The Observer (UK)