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Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

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Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#71

Post by kevc »

tyingq wrote: post #67

The health plan rates available to individuals cost quite a bit more than ones negotiated by a big company or consortium of smaller companies. When I last had to do my own insurance, it was $2200/month for a high end, lowish deductible plan that covered my family. Choice is nice, but the costs are so high now that I'd rather have the lower negotiated rates with less choices.

You are right, big-group rates are the lowest. Grouping smaller companies to negotiate lower rates is something we are actively pursuing.

Small group prices can, on average, be more or less competitive than the individual market, depending on geography. In recent years, the prices of both types of insurance have been trending towards similarity, but there is still substantial variation region-by-region.

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#72

Post by RIMR »

exabrial wrote: post #42

If we could see the return of individual HSA plans to the marketplace, this would be truly incredible!

For whom? Because HSA plans are almost always associated with bad health insurance options.

If an HSA plan worked for you, chances are you are young and healthy and don't realize what would happen to you financially if you needed regular healthcare service under these plans.

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#73

Post by RIMR »

kevc wrote: post #10
RIMR wrote: post #5

Oh wonderful - more for-profit exploitation of people's need for healthcare. This business model is only possible because of deregulation by our current Federal Government. I hate to sound mean, but I really hope that this business fails. I know people worked hard on this with an expectation of a financial return, but 68,000 people die every year because of this illusion of choice being exploited here, and if we can…

Almost all of our current customers are using us to offer health benefits to their employees for the first time. I understand there is frustration with the larger healthcare system. No question there are large, systemic challenges. We saw a problem that SMBs weren't offering health benefits, and felt like there was a solution to help them. That seemed preferable to waiting on the sidelines for a complete overhaul of…

That's the thing: Your customers shouldn't even be part of the equation.

Healthcare is a HUMAN right, not a workers right or a "if you have enough money to pay for it" right.

Ideally, your customers and their employees shouldn't have to worry about this at all. You are just another middleman standing between human beings and their health.

I see no reason you should exist. You aren't innovating or making the world better. Clearly your purpose extends no further than to create profits for shareholders.

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#74

Post by jcrben »

As someone with a chronic illness, thank you for this. I don't want my employer to be responsible for my insurance. I want portability and privacy. I want more than just the options my employer decided to pick.

If this becomes a trend, we could see the individual ACA marketplace strengthened. Right now part of the problem is that they are missing a lot of the healthy people in the group market, which is partly why the big insurers have left the market - for example, the California exchange is missing UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, and so on.

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#75

Post by dang »

RIMR wrote: post #73
kevc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of our current customers are using us to offer health benefits to their employees for the first time. I understand there is frustration with the larger healthcare system. No question there are large, systemic challenges. We saw a problem that SMBs weren't offering health benefits, and felt like there was a solution to help them. That seemed preferable to waiting on the sidelines for a complete overhaul of…

That's the thing: Your customers shouldn't even be part of the equation. Healthcare is a HUMAN right, not a workers right or a "if you have enough money to pay for it" right. Ideally, your customers and their employees shouldn't have to worry about this at all. You are just another middleman standing between human beings and their health. I see no reason you should exist. You aren't innovating or making the world bet…

Please stop taking HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. These angry, generic discussions are all the same, and not what this site is for. We've had to ask you about this repeatedly already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#77

Post by simmons »

tptacek wrote: post #59
koolba wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re substantially worse. ACA plans have worse networks, higher deductibles, and higher max out of pockets. Imagine if they didn’t? No employer under 50 employees would bother getting group coverage as they could get better coverage for less via the QSEHRA route.

I had ACA coverage before we offered group health insurance to our employees and did not find these things to be true: the network for my ACA silver plan was the same (fine) network as we get now, the deductible options are the same (but I was opting for higher deductibles to go with an HSA on the ACA plan, which is what I think most startup employees should do), and the out-of-pocket costs were the same. I suspect t…

As a sibling comment points out, the value of ACA plans may vary quite a bit from state to state. I don't know how it is elsewhere, but here in Colorado the major insurance companies only provide a special, lousy version of their product on the marketplace. It's not uncommon to find health providers that claim to take Anthem or Cigna insurance, for example, only to show up and be told that "Anthem Pathway" and "Cigna Connect" don't count. Astonishingly, they don't seem to be willing to sell regular plans to individuals for any amount of money. (Source: self-employed.)

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#78

Post by bdcravens »

tyingq wrote: post #67

The health plan rates available to individuals cost quite a bit more than ones negotiated by a big company or consortium of smaller companies. When I last had to do my own insurance, it was $2200/month for a high end, lowish deductible plan that covered my family. Choice is nice, but the costs are so high now that I'd rather have the lower negotiated rates with less choices.

Not just rates, but options. Before my employer added healthcare as a benefit, my options were getting worse and worse every year. The last year there weren't any PPOs available via the marketplace. (My employer plan is a great PPO however)

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#79

Post by kevc »

choward wrote: post #65

So we're adding another middleman to the healthcare system? It seems like we should be working toward the exact opposite of this. I view any service like this that makes money from the healthcare industry but doesn't actually provide healthcare as a huge inefficiency that will further increase the price of healthcare. What's next? A startup that helps you choose between these middlemen companies? This insanity has to…

We agree that less distance between the buyer and the end user is better. In our case, the middleman we are removing is the employer. With us, employers are no longer picking specific health insurance policies on behalf of their employees. Instead employees are purchasing them directly through our app, but still reaping the significant tax savings of employer-provided health benefits.

Re: Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance

#80

Post by tptacek »

simmons wrote: post #77
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had ACA coverage before we offered group health insurance to our employees and did not find these things to be true: the network for my ACA silver plan was the same (fine) network as we get now, the deductible options are the same (but I was opting for higher deductibles to go with an HSA on the ACA plan, which is what I think most startup employees should do), and the out-of-pocket costs were the same. I suspect t…

As a sibling comment points out, the value of ACA plans may vary quite a bit from state to state. I don't know how it is elsewhere, but here in Colorado the major insurance companies only provide a special, lousy version of their product on the marketplace. It's not uncommon to find health providers that claim to take Anthem or Cigna insurance, for example, only to show up and be told that "Anthem Pathway" and "Cigna…

That's common in the small-group market too: the insurers have a network they advertise, and then smaller subset networks they offer for a lower price. So, I know it's true that you have to be careful not to accidentally subscribe for the small-network version. It's definitely not the case in Illinois that the large-network plans aren't available on the exchange; they are. Couldn't tell you about California or New York, though.
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