Health Care for Software Consultants

Plan	Individual	Individual + Family
Corba	$900/mo	$1,500/mo
Individual Plan	$800	$1,200
Small Business Plan	$230	$700

The thing is, there isn’t any easy, straightforward ways of getting health coverage for an individual. In this article I’ll be walking you through the process of getting health coverage at the best rates. Rates vary considerably depending on the plans and your application status.

Corba

So you use to be on Employer Health Plan, in most cases you’ll be entitled to coverage under a Corba Plan . Corba Plans are usually extremely expensive but they provide a guaranty under federal law, to continue receiving your health benefits. Usually you have 60 days to decide to get coverage under a Corba Plan. Don’t neglect the Corba option, it is very expensive, around $1500/month for a family of five, but the advantage is that you can’t be denied coverage as it might well happen if you decide to go on your own and shop for better rates. Also, be very careful with your payments, one payment missed could mean a termination of your contract and ineligibility to Corba.

Self Insured

Either you missed the deadline or you decided that the rates are outrageous, you’re now looking for a plan that could cover you and/or your family. You’re going to apply personally as an individual.

Shopping around for a plan

I found the best way to shop around for plans is to use a site like EHealth, don't buy though them, just use them to compare plans. You’ll be able to search for plans that meet your criteria and compare side by side the features of the different plans. I also found their tutorials to be very helpful.

Applying … and getting rejected ;-(

On to the next step: after countless hours looking at plans and plan options you’ve decided on one. You download the (10 page long) application, you fill it out carefully – there I recommend making no omissions of previous health conditions. It is preferable to be rejected upfront than to find out that a claim is rejected because of a non disclosed medical condition. (Health care companies have armies of MDs that sole occupation is to dig into customer medical files so to deny a claim) ... don’t play that game, you’ll loose !
Unfortunately, chances that you get rejected are fairly high, I got rejected twice although I consider my family and my medical history as close to flawless as it can be … the mysteries of risk management !

Corporate plan through your business

This is by far the best option of all. You’ll get the best deals and your chances to be denied are very low. Now, the catch is that you’ll have to qualify for Small Business Plans, first of all, you’ll have to be incorporated. Your company will probably be eligible for a small business plan if it meets the following criteria:

1. Your company consists of at least two full-time owners, officers, partners and/or employees, as verified by officially-filed state quarterly wage and tax statements (e.g., NYS-45 in New York and DE-6 in California) or annual federal tax return documents;
2. Your company is a legitimate business entity (i.e., your company was formed for a purpose other than to obtain insurance), as verified by one of the following documents:
1. A business license or fictitious name filing (proprietorships and partnerships)
2. Articles of incorporation (corporations); or
3. Articles of organization (limited liability company).
3. Your company meets the minimum employer contribution percentage set by the insurance company.

Again, EHealth is the best place to shop and compare plans. Ounce you’ve identified a plan you can either apply through them or get in touch with a broker that will assist you with your application.

I also found the following plans to be worth the attention:

1. Costco , offers a Small Business Plan for health and Dental care
2. IEEE , also offers a set of financial and health plans , but you need to first qualify for an IEEE membership.

Here are some resources on the Web for individuals and small businesses in the USA who are seeking health insurance.

1. EHealth
2. ExtendedBenefits
3. 50 Million Americans live without health care
4. Bank Of America Small Business Community Site

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Resetting Mysql root password on Ubuntu Lucid

Last night, I upgraded my Ubuntu box from Karmic to Lucid. The process went surprisingly smoothly and fast. When I went back to my Rails development, I was surprised to see that none of the db connection were succeeding anymore. Then I remembered a dialog box that pop-ed up during the installation process about the Mysql 'myconf' file ...
Here's what i did to reset the root passwords on my database (this is my development box, since I re-install Mysql quite frequently, I'm sometime lazy and use the root account for development)

Stop the Mysql server

In Lucid some init.d scripts (maybe all - not sure) have been converted to services. To stop Mysql type:

laptop$ sudo stop mysql

Restart MySQL, wo network communication and authentication

laptop$ sudo mysqld --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &

Reset the password

laptop$ mysql mysql -u root
mysql> UPDATE user SET password=PASSWORD('supersecretpassword') WHERE user="root";
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEDGE;

Kill and Restart Mysql Service

laptop$ sudo kill `ps -C mysqld -o pid=`
[1]+  Done                    sudo mysqld --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking
laptop$  sudo start mysql
mysql start/running, process 11822

Test the connection

mysql -uroot -p

You should be now connected !

Note:

Btw, if you wonder how to find out what Ubuntu release you're running try:

yacin@ybsis_laptop_1: cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04 LTS"

Why do Contractors become contractors or why I think the employee/employer relationship is flawed ?

What’s your main asset as a coder ? Your brain !

You use your brain to analyze problems, to design innovative solutions, to come up with business value adding ideas …
The sad thing is that as an employee, your ideas, basically your brain your most valuable asset is owned by by your employer.

Why is your brain your main asset ?

You’ve invested a lot in your brain. Countless hours studying, and learning new subjects. You and/or your parents have spent a great deal on your education and training. Accounting for all the hours and tuition money you may well have invested over $300,000 building the right synapses that make you the professional you are today.

The same way muscles are the major factor of success in the career of a football player, your brain will decide of your future as a coder or software professional. You’ve been taking good care of it, nurturing it and protecting it.
As a coder, you are a knowledge worker. Your knowledge, your experience, your skills is what you rent or sell for a living.

So if your brain is your main asset , why are you giving it away for free ?

Why doesn’t your brain belong to you anymore ?

Have you read the fine prints on your formal employment agreement or offer letter. It refers to a document that you’ve signed on the first day of employment: Non Disclosure and Invention Assignment Agreement also called Proprietary Information and Invention Agreement.


I have nothing against the non disclosure clause. I consider non-disclosure of information you’re entrusted with by a third party, the corner stone of any relationship, personal or professional. Integrity is built on non-disclosure .

Now, on the other hand, from the stand point of a software developer, proprietary and invention agreement is a rip-off agreement !

The proprietary and invention agreement basically assigns to the company all rights to any invention that results from work performed for the employer or work that relates to the employer’s current business or demonstrably anticipated research and development.

It is the worst type of agreement you can signed as a knowledge worker. You’ve been investing and improving this beautiful house that is your brain and your just handing out the keys to your employer. Ho, but wait, I’m getting a rent in return, my salary . Yes, you are getting a rent but your also giving away your property title … remember the Invention Agreement, you’re not getting a return on your investment, your employer is !

Let’s illustrate this with an example. As a direct result of you hard work and passion, you’re in a position to file a patent.
You go ahead and according to the agreement you signed, your name is on the patent but the patent belongs to your employer.
If you’re lucky, your employer has incentives in place and you get a couple of thousand dollars. On the other hand, your employer, gets all future rights to the invention and its lucrative derivatives. In addition, having an additional patent in its portfolio increases its competitive advantages and its valuation. Guess who wins ?

But enough with materialistic consideration, what about your soul ?

Loosing your soul … corporate politics

I their great study of knowledge contractors in the Silicon Valley, S. Barley and G. Kunda, interviewed several contractors to understand why in the first place they had decided to “escape the world of full time employment”. They report that “politics” is cited as the most common motif for moving into the world of contracting. “Politics” , they say, “is best understood as a cover term for the myriad ways in which personal agendas and interests undermine technical rationality as a a criterion for action Contractors’ complaints about politics often targeted managers. The perception that managers acted to further their own interests was so wide spread that contractors frequently portrayed technical professionals as pawns in management’s political game” .


On his blog, Marc Dangeard, a Senior Advisor dedicated to Entrepreneurs as he describes himself, writes about politics within the corporation. Taking the recent example of Societe Generale he explains why “the whole corporate system is conceived to promote people who do not take risk” and how “in such an environment doing nothing also means letting your reports do things that may not be 100% ethical as long as you can maintain an ability to claim ignorance”.
He finishes on a bright note “let’s hope that the changes brought by Social Networking and Peer-to-peer collaboration will bring us better systems to organize how we work together…“

What can you do about it ?

If you decide to stay an employee, not much, unfortunately.
It is your employer who has the lawyers, the cash and who is making the rules of the game, and guess what, the rules are not drafted in your favor ;-( .

Ok, this was a little overstated and on the dark side, I admit it.

There are actually a couple of things you can do to protect your self and your investment:

1. legal: make sure you disclose, in writing in the proprietary agreement, all invention from prior to your employment. In this way your employer will not be able to claim rights on work/research you did prior to joining,
2. intellectual property: make sure you never, ever use your employer time/facilities/computers/network/pen to work on an idea you have, wait until you live the company to file a patent,
3. education/training: make your employer pay for as much training and education as possible.

But if you really want to cash on your investment, escape to contracting or launch your own company!