Health Insurance for Farmers and Small Business Owners

[Does’ Leap]

What do you self-employed folks do for health insurance (if any)? My wife and I are full time farmers in Vermont and have received “premium assistance” from the state – essentially a subsidy to reduce insurance costs – for years. We recently got booted off this progam b/c the state does not accept depreciation as an expense. Unlike the IRS, this program will not let you deduct depreciation from your gross income. In 2 weeks, we will be uninsured and are looking for some affordable options. At this point, it looks like some kind of catastrophic health insurance plan with a huge deductible. Any suggestions?

Thanks

George

[Theloggerswife]

Have you checked with the Vermont Catamount Health Plan? Are you a Member of the Chamber of Commerce? If yes, you would receive a discounted rate for health insurance on their plan. Members of the Vermont Farm Bureau receive discounts to certain companies too.

As to answer your question as to what we do…I keep working full-time off the farm in order to keep health insurance benefits. My husband is self-employed and I am the steady income/benefit package earner.

[dominiquer60]

That is really unfortunate that VT is so small farm unfriendly with Health Insurance. For anyone reading from NY, Healthy NY seems to be the best that I could find, they just go by your 1040 gross adjusted income.

[Eli]

I was a dairy farmer for 20 years and we always struggled to pay high health insurance. If I could figure out the health insurance I would be self employed. Good luck

[fogish]

I will keep looking around for you, Vermont has decided to setup a state exchange as part of the ACA so that will include plans you can purchase. Part of the ACA is a tax credit available in 2014 to people under 65, I don’t know if it’s available to those over 65 already. I will find Vermont’s exchange info for you but the first link should give you something for now:
http://coverageforall.org/
http://dvha.vermont.gov/for-consumers
http://hcr.vermont.gov/timeline/exchange
Looks like Vermont is going to a single payer system in 2017, if they set it up correctly things should be cheaper for you overall at that point. I wish I could be more help.

[Does’ Leap]

Hi Fogish:

Thanks for all the ideas. Turns out, after a four month appeal process, we were accepted back into the program. Looks like we could face the same problem next year, so I will look into those resources.

George

[Author]

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