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Healthcare - DonationBasedHealthCare - CooperativeHealthCare - old content moved to HealthCareArchive
(A summary of a discussion at Google groups Coworking- Mar 2007 discussion. For current discussion and devlopment, please see Healthcare)
Coworking Health Care
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- Contextualizing Question: "What would it look like for everyone
involved in the coworking movement to offer group health insurance as
a group to have greater price negotation?"
Possible/Proposed Directions Toward A Solution:
Partnering with existing Organizations for Independents
The Coworking network could partner with existing self-employed/freelancer organizations, on the precondition of a discount.
Examples of organizations discussed include:
- National Association of the
Self-Employed http://nase.org/
Benefits to Partnering with existing Organizations for Independents:
- Using existing infrastructure of organizations. No overhead resulting from creating an organization.
Possible roadblocks to Partnering with existing Organizations for Independents:
- ChrisMessina: "unless we figured out some way to centralize coworking (which I'm personally reticent to consider), it'd be hard to leverage the size of our community (or potential community) to convince anyone to give us a good rate."
It is also suggested that each local Coworking group try to list the best known existing health care for independents available in your area.
Providing/Sharing Good Information on Healthcare Options
- From Tara: We just got insured for a pretty low fee under eHealthInsurance - pretty low hassle, our rates are under $150/person/month including dental & they have a small business option
Creating a Cooperative or Non Profit Based organization
Possible Organizations Discussed:
- Create a kind of membership organization or 501c6 Non profit trade association that charges dues, and possibly teaming up with an existing organization like http://www.aiga.org/ to provide healthcare options
Benefits: Pooling purchasing power, and potentially using existing infrastrucutre of othe organizations
Potential Roadblocks: Lots of overhead and administration.
Benefits: Governed by people paying dues, gives potentially most leverage of group purchasing power, depending on how Cooperative is organized.
Potential Roadblocks: Probably the most intensive overhead and administration. Most cooperatives ultimately hire professionals to manage routine administration. But, there is still involvement required in governing.
Seeding, Enabling and Connecting with Networks of Independet Health Care Professionals
- ChrisMessina: "What about a Coworkers (network) paired with an Independent Doctors and Caregivers network? Surely there are docs out there who don't want the HMO lifestyle and who would be interested in serving our constituents needs?...isn't this really about independence in general and "getting off the grid/treadmill/HMO plan"? Isn't our work all about creating a new economy that values and rewards those who
remain independent and pursue making a living doing what they love to do?"
- How can the concept of Coworking be spread to the healthcare profession? Coworking has spread quickly in part because it contains useable building blocks of concepts, tools, and ideas that help independents solve problems they are interested in solving in collaborative ways. So:
- what are the problems that independent health care professionals want to solve, that can be enhanced by collaboration in decentralized and open networks?
- How can this be seeded in health care communities, so that it will grow on it's own, the way that Coworking has grown?
Blogging about it?
Some form of outreach to healthcare independents outreach?
(un) conferences in or near universities where health care is taught?
Getting Coworkers to go out in their areas and talk to health care independents?
Other...???
Who are the plausible early adopters that will create the core enthusiastic community of health care independents that this could spread from?
How can the Coworking community work together to help make this option for healthcare independents more desireable and attractive than the HMOTreadmill?**
- The (thus far unstated) goal here is to create a mutually-benefitting mesh network of coworking independents and health care independents. Utilizing the same thinking and decentralized knowledge commons concepts that Coworking is growing with.
Discussion
Moved here from Original Healthcare page. -- SamRose