Small Business Health Insurance

Health Insurance is an interesting topic.  In discussions with other small business owners the amazing increases year over year by the big insurance companes are staggering.  In our case United Healthcare increased our premiums by as much as 20% per year - and we're a pretty healthy group of people.  Finally I had to sit down and calculate the costs of having a small group plan vs. one of these individualized plans.   So it used to cost $1200/month to cover my family and I via the small group plan with a 4000 deductable.  Now we have an individual plan, same lifetime max benefit, Rx rider, higher deductable (about double) and our total cost is about $350/month.  So I'm saving $12000 a year (more or less) in paying straight health insurance costs.  Now if we have an incident then we have to pay more, but in general it's been a huge cost savings.

The problem is that health plans were pushing for "consumer driven healthcare" - where people have free choice to choose what healthplan they want rather than being tied to an employer.  Problem is pre-existing conditions - the insurance companies don't want people who have medical conditions.  I think things will start changing - but it's going to take time.  How can you take down companies that are making Billions.