With the downturn and massive loss of jobs (unemployment stands at 9.7%), a lot of people are finding work as independent contractors. Some are finding contract work at fewer than full time. Others are simply seeing employers are now preferring to go with contractors to reduce expenses. Independent contractors don’t require benefits like health insurance, 401(k), vacation, or sick time.

One such person is reader Amanda, who recently emailed me to ask me about self-employed health insurance. I have done research on it in the past but with the current state of the economy, I think I should take a renewed look at self employed health insurance. So without further delay, how to find affordable self employed health insurance and then a brief discussion on why self employed health insurance is different.

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There’s been a lot of buzz in the news lately on the issue of organ trafficking. While this CNN story wasn’t the first time I heard Nick Rosen’s story of selling a kidney for $20,000, it is certainly a sign that the discussion of selling organs is coming back into the spotlight.

The story of Rosen probably isn’t all that different from other people who have sold organs. They saw an ad, answered it, duped the hospital doing the transplant, and got paid. The difference was that he then bragged about it in a “documentary” about how easy it was to do (I say brag because the video supposedly has him lying on a bed covered in cash).

What do you think about organ trafficking? I’m against the idea. I believe someone should be able to sell an organ if they want to but I think that making organ trafficking legal opens up a whole host of legal, economic, and moral issues we can’t answer.

For example, if the market price of an organ is $20,000 then anyone who can’t possibly pay that amount would simply die. Any “rational” person, in the economic sense, who would freely donate a kidney to a stranger would now demand $20,000 because that’s the market price of a kidney. What if the person is mentally unstable? What if they aren’t considered emotionally fit enough to make the decision?

It just seems like once you put a price on something like that, you introduce a lot more headaches than you’re probably prepared to deal with.

What do you think?

(PHoto: myklroventine)

Yesterday, my wife quit her job of nearly four years in the middle of the worst economic recession in many many decades.

Wait, that’s probably not framed in the best way. How about this:

Yesterday, my wife quit her job of nearly four years to pursue a doctorate at the University of Maryland.

Better?

Either way, neither one of us has a “traditional” job. As such, we’ve had to make a few adjustments in our life for the period between when she left her job (yesterday) and when she’ll start graduate school.

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A few days ago I wrote about how we got a new dog and all the new dog expenses. One of the more regular expenses will be Frontline and I couldn’t resist a little bit of rhyming. Frontline is a product we’ll need to buy regularly for Toby and so the best option typically will be to buy it online.

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If you have medical insurance, you should receive an Explanation of Benefits from your insurance company every time you visit a doctor. Have you ever looked at one? It’s amazing. You’ll see the how much the doctor billed you, how much the insurance company negotiated as an allowable rate, and the difference can be staggering. The catch-22 in all this is that if you don’t have insurance, you’d have to pay the standard rate unless you negotiated with the doctor… and negotiating with the white coat can be hard. Fortunately, it’s not as uncommon as you think, according to a New York Times article, and here are a few tips I’ve researched from the interwebs.

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I’ve been doing some research to improve upon my “How to Get Independent Health Insurance” post, because 3.6 million people have lost their jobs in the last year-plus. I requested health insurance quotes through eHealthInsurance, which mainstream media absolutely loves (Kiplinger just named them one of 2008’s Best Sites for Health Insurance), and saw that plans from the same company varied greatly based on deductible, plan type, co-pays, etc. I think the concept of deductibles and co-pays are well understood, but what are these plan types?

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With only three days left in the year, a lot of people are scrambling to spend down their Flexible Spending Accounts before the balance expires worthless. It’s a crazy system but those are the rules. Fortunately, if you can’t squeeze in any end-of-the-year dentist appointments or medical checkups, you can always spend them on eligible over-the-counter supplies you will likely need next year. I’ve put together a list of things I usually stock up on if I find myself with a few extra bucks.

In the past I’ve always bought a lot of my OTC products on Drugstore.com because they helpfully label which items are FSA-eligible, which takes a bit of the guesswork out, and because I won’t have to pay sales tax on my purchases. Amazon.com is a good place too but they don’t label FSA eligible products.

Last Minute FSA Ideas

• Contact lens solution
• First aid kits – When I’ve stocked up on everything else, I just buy some first aid kits to put in the car, my wife’s car, our kitchen, our upstairs closet…
• Band-aids, blister band-aids
• Motion/sea/car sickness pills
• Pain relief – Advil, Tylenol, Bayer, etc… you can’t have too much.
• Electric heating pads
• Thermometers
• Allergy medicine – Loratadine is always good to have, it’s the antihistamine in Claritin, at a fraction of the price.
• Healing lotions – They often smell like medicine but they’re good for you.
• Acid reflux drugs – I don’t use them often but when I need them, it’s awesome to have them handy.
• Smoking cessation products
• Braces, supports, ACE bandages
• Ice packs – for those sprained ankles
• Blood pressure monitor – instead of using the trusty arm wrap pump (I made up that name) and stethoscope, go 21st century!
• Defibrillator – This is for when you’ve grossly under-estimated your spending, by like a thousand dolllars or more, you can consider getting one of these. It’s for cases like where you planned on Lasik but then couldn’t get the procedure. These things usually last only a couple years too (pads last for around 2, battery for four, and you need to frequently test them), but they are lifesavers if you have a heart attack..

Good luck!

Three years ago my wife, then my girlfriend, quit her job in New Jersey and moved down to Maryland. In doing so, she also gave up her employer sponsored health insurance, which was a big deal.

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Everyone’s been focused on brokerage failures and bank failures lately, wondering what happens and who backs them in the event of a failure… that is until we learned that AIG (American International Group) was in serious trouble. This begs the question very few have asked before, what happens if my insurance company fails? The quick answer is that most states have a guaranty that will back the fund up to a certain dollar amount.

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Six months ago, I became a professional blogger (or problogger, as the lingo goes) but the process of going professional was easily six months in the making (three years if you ask my wife).

I don’t know if it’s come through in my writing, or if you’ve read long enough to tease this out, but I’m a predominately conservative person with regard to risk (not political leanings). However, given the right opportunities, I’m willing to make aggressive moves that some would consider extremely risky. Resigning my full time position to pursue what is essentially a freelance writing gig ranks as extremely risky in my pantheon of risk. While you’re never 100% safe in your job, it’s certainly more stable than working for yourself. Being self-employed has its benefits, stability certainly isn’t one of them. This article will detail how I mitigated those risks, as best I could, and how I prepared to become a professional blogger.

This article is pretty long and might not be all that useful to many people, but several other bloggers and my friends have asked about how I prepared to become a freelancer/problogger so I thought I’d put it all together.

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