by: Dennis Anthem
Self employed residents of California looking for health insurance have largest selection of options from any other state. Whether you are a sole proprietor or the owner or a multi-million dollar company with hundreds of employees there are many California health insurance options for you to consider.
The direction that you decide to take depends largely on the goals that you have for your business. For example, if you are a small one-man shop and you (and your dependents or family) are healthy as can be then most likely an individual California health insurance plan makes sense for you. Individual policy will be cheaper than a comparable group health insurance policy because there are much more stringent health criteria that must be met on individual underwriting side.
If you are a small one to two man operation and plan on aggressively expanding your business very soon then there are a few other things to consider rather than just purchasing a California individual health insurance policy. The two most common approaches for California small business owners in this situation is to either set up a medical reimbursement type plan where you allocate a set amount to each employee/worker being careful not to discriminate (this then allows the employee/worker to purchase their own individual coverage using the set dollar amount provided) or to set up a California small business (group) health plan. When setting up medical reimbursement plan consider that if you hire some one that medically cannot qualify for individual health plan, that person can sue you. All of the employees must be treated the same and have same options available to them. If one employee cannot get health coverage on their own and everyone else in the company has a health plans that could cause problems.
On a side note, be sure and seek the advice of a qualified tax professional that is familiar in assisting self employed business owners in California. As you long as you have some net schedule C income then you will be able to deduct 100% of your health insurance premiums paid (for you - and your whole family if applicable) all the way up to your net Schedule C income minus 1/2 of your self employed taxes paid. From a tax standpoint this is much better than the deduction that all taxpayers (whether self employed or not) get if they itemize. If a non self employed person itemizes (their schedule A deduction is greater than their standard deduction) than they are able to deduct their health insurance premiums as a medical expense on schedule A but only the amount that exceed 7.5% of the adjusted gross income (AGI).
Maybe you are a self employed Californian but you have a somewhat large company - you probably will want a straightforward group health plan. Group plans once implemented are much easier to manage then having separate individual health plans for everyone. Health insurance and other employee benefits can be a great way to attract, reward and retain employees and of course take care of your health and security. Be sure to compare California health insurance quotes from multiple CA companies.
Dennis Anthem leading authority in individual and group healthcare industry. Consultant for Blue Cross health insurance that provides individuals, families and small groups with health insurance for California.
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