Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes • Hacker News Board

Re: Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes

#11

Post by coolsunglasses » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

ressaid1 wrote: post #7

warfangle wrote: post #6

Not to the OP, but if the author or someone from distilnetworks.com reads this: you probably shouldn't have a customer service bot proactively try and chat with people who are just reading your blog.

I really appreciate the note. It is an actual person, not a bot that chats with each user but I actually agree with your perspective. It can be seen as intrusive. As the CEO, I'm making the executive decision to take the chat feature off the blog today. Thanks for helping improve our user experience!

I'm very glad you're making the executive decision as the CEO to remove the chat feature off the blog as opposed to just doing it.

Re: Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes

#12

Post by ressaid1 » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

coolsunglasses wrote: post #11

ressaid1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate the note. It is an actual person, not a bot that chats with each user but I actually agree with your perspective. It can be seen as intrusive. As the CEO, I'm making the executive decision to take the chat feature off the blog today. Thanks for helping improve our user experience!

I'm very glad you're making the executive decision as the CEO to remove the chat feature off the blog as opposed to just doing it.

Hah. Its not that simple to just pull off. The js code snippet is part of the theme and so we have to restructure several things to selectively place it on certain pages and not others. As a developer I hate having interrupts come in so I dont do that to my guys. We put it in the queue, it'll get done this week.

Re: Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes

#13

Post by donjigweed » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

Yes, if you are on the younger end of the spectrum, your premiums are likely to go up. If you are on the older end of the spectrum your premiums are likely to go down, or at least, you're now able to afford insurance. If you own a company in an industry that employs people on the younger end of the spectrum, yes, you might be paying a bit more so that your employees can afford healthcare in their later years. Previously your costs were artificially low.

Re: Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes

#14

Post by samworm » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 7:57 PM UTC

"Now, you can still do some of those tricks, but not as extensively." The language in this blog post make it pretty clear that this isn't a company you want to work for. Stop trying to nickel and dime your employees. Provide good affordable health care for everyone from the CEO down to the cleaner. Be a socially responsible entity. Make that one of the pillars of your business. Success without it isn't success at all.

Re: Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes

#15

Post by ScottWhigham » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 8:07 PM UTC

samworm wrote: post #14

"Now, you can still do some of those tricks, but not as extensively." The language in this blog post make it pretty clear that this isn't a company you want to work for. Stop trying to nickel and dime your employees. Provide good affordable health care for everyone from the CEO down to the cleaner. Be a socially responsible entity. Make that one of the pillars of your business. Success without it isn't success at all…

I didn't get that at all. I think you're bringing some bias to it - I can't wrap my head around how else you would have come away with that sentiment. Either that or you didn't really read it. Let me do the whole paragraph:

In the past, you could sometimes defer some of your healthcare costs by offering only high-deductible plans. You could offer policy choices with higher copays. You could even incentivize employees to drop coverage altogether.

Is any of that untrue, or bad for a company to do? Absolutely not. If I say to an employee, "Which would you rather have - a $70,000 salary with a $5,000 deductible health plan, or a $60,000 salary with a no deductible plan?", which one will they choose? Hell if I know in advance - that's up to each employee. I've offered them the same basic thing and let them choose what fits them the best. I fail to see how that's "bad".

Get off your high horse.