We've been thinking about and discussing this at Citizen Space for some time.
The best model that exists is Freelancers Union -- and I think Noel knows more about their situation. They're registered as a special type of organization that allows them to buy health care at a discount/group price and unless we figured out some way to centralize coworking (which I'm personally reticent to consider), it'd be hard to leverage the size of our community (or potential community) to convince anyone to give us a good rate. Now, on the other hand, if we were to create a kind of membership organization or 501c6 that charged dues, we might stand a better chance of negotiating a deal -- especially if we teamed up with a freelancer-friendly organization like the AIGA. My biggest concern is with overhead administrating such a scheme. At the lower end of the spectrum, I think we could try to arrange a meeting with the folks from TriNet and see if they could help us... Googling around a bit I came upon the National Association of the Self-Employed (http://nase.org/) that seems to offer low-cost health care, but I have no idea about their reputability. I'm hoping that over time someone from the community will emerge who knows more about this stuff than I -- but in the meantime, why don't we start writing up the kind of coverage we'd want as a coworking collective and see if we can't go from there? Chris On 3/4/07, Brad Neuberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Quick question: would it be possible for all of the coworking spaces > to offer affordable group insurance to it's members? Not sure of how > the actual logistics would work out, but since all of us are > self-employed I'm sure everyone knows about the serious problems with > self-employed health insurance, such as them dropping your coverage, > massively high premiums, etc. What would it look like for everyone > involved in the coworking movement to offer group health insurance as > a group to have greater price negotation? > > Best, > Brad > > > > -- Chris Messina Citizen Provocateur & Open Source Ambassador-at-Large Work: http://citizenagency.com Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog Cell: 412 225-1051 Skype: factoryjoe This email is: [ ] bloggable [X] ask first [ ] private --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
