03.28.08  -  by Nick Adams
Dealing with health insurance is possibly the biggest pain in the ass involved with running a business. It is a total scam. Premiums are insane, and coverage is spotty at best. Not to mention the bureaucratic nightmare of the application process. This article provides some resources (and moral support) for small business owners dealing with health insurance issues. I can personally vouch for ehealthinsurance.com. I used them to research plans and get quotes, and they were great. They act as a broker throughout the entire application process and assign an account executive to your case. The customer service was surprisingly good. We didn't actually end up purchasing the plan we applied for through them (through no fault of theirs) since we got denied coverage by GHI at the last minute because they didn't like that, as a partnership, we paid each other with profit draws, not official NYS-45/W-4 wages. Ugh, I won't go into details. Also, you politicians who always talk about tax breaks for businesses, how about health insurance subsidies? Health insurance costs are one of the biggest hurdles when trying to grow from a start-up, to a small business and beyond. We can't hire people, and spur the economy, if we cant afford their benefits!