Insurance Available After Work
Among the stiffest challenges older workers face when they retire early or are downsized out of a job is securing health insurance.
Adding to their dilemma in the Spokane area, major insurers have dropped out of the individual market, leaving thousands scrambling for coverage.
For early retirees and older workers forced out, this is a precarious time of life - too young to qualify for Medicare, and too old to buy individual insurance in the open market.
But coverage is available, assures Kris Colvin, insurance agent for the National Association for the SelfEmployed. “I work a lot with early retirees,” she says.
The association’s primary mission is lobbying Congress on behalf of the smallest of small employers - the self-employed and independent workers. In addition to its advocacy role, the association offers its 200,000-plus members more than 100 other benefits and services, all the way from free tax counseling to discount movie tickets.
The most popular, Colvin says, is health insurance for individuals, for the self-employed and for families.
“You probably have never heard of us,” she concedes. “We don’t have a big advertising budget like the National Federation of Independent Business, which targets the larger small businesses - those with 50 employees and up.
“We focus on the self-employed, the individual entrepreneur.”
Nearly 15 million Americans are self-employed, according to the lobby. Independents, who make up more than a third of today’s labor force, are projected to become the majority early in the next millennium.
The lobby’s insurance program is underwritten by the MEGA Life and Health Insurance Co., Oklahoma City, Okla., which Colvin says is rated “A Excellent” by A. M. Best.
“I cover 15 Eastern Washington counties out of Spokane,” says Colvin. “I sit down with individuals and families, and together, over their kitchen table, we come up with a package to fill their needs.”
Few want frills. Many opt for catastrophic only. Average cost for a 55-year-old individual, she estimates, is between $180 and $230 a month.
Colvin’s business phone number is listed under her last name in the insurance Yellow Pages. The association is on the Web at www.nase.org.
American Association of Retired Persons is trying to sign up 2,000 activists in every congressional district in America to help preserve and strengthen Medicare and Social Security in the 2000 elections.
Sign-up sheets will be available in the AARP exhibit at the Senior Wellness Conference, Sept. 9 at Spokane Community College, says AARP spokeswoman Elinor Nuxoll in Spokane.
The sheets also will be posted at AARP chapter meetings around the area and at the Retired and Senior Volunteer office in the Spokane YMCA. Senior centers and others may request sign-up sheets from Nuxoll, AARP media specialist, at 487-3383.
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Contrary to recent studies which suggested alcohol, in particular red wine, protects against heart disease, new research from Scotland published in The British Medical Journal showed no evidence of any health benefits whatsoever.