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kevc

293 karma · joined June 21, 2019

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kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
Yes, we give access to any ACA-compliant plan on the market - many of which can be paired with HSAs.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
We absolutely want to use our platform as a base for negotiating lower prices. Currently our customers have 0 negotiating power and can actually get serious price increases if a single person in their group gets sick. For employers in this situation, it's often cheaper to use us and get employees all the same tax savings, but buy on the individual market.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
We are extremely interested in engaging in group bargaining for lower rates and are actively working with experts who have experience doing this. A recent federal ruling has opened the door to doing this across state lines, which could be very powerful.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
The QSEHRA was kind of like the beta version of the new ICHRA. Many of its limitations have been lifted with the new regulation. QSEHRAs are restricted to under 50 employees, and have caps on how much employers can contribute (~$420 / single employee). We don't have those restrictions. Also, any extra employee contributions would still be taxable if you were to just cut QSEHRA checks as an employer.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
FYI, when an employer signs up with Savvy this qualifies as a special enrollment period for all employees. This allows them to enroll in health insurance mid-year.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
Are you referring to a health share program? In order to spend your health stipend tax-free, you must be enrolled in a plan that has Minimum Essential Coverage. Paired with an MEC plan, you could pay for medical expenses tax-free as part of a health share.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/minimum-essential-covera...

kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
We are really focused on providing this as an "on-ramp" for small employers. Providing large employers an "off-ramp" isn't a use case we have seen much interest in. However, there is an interesting historical precedent with retirement plans, which suggests that there can be systemic benefits that come when employees have more control. Pre 1978, employers offered pensions as a retirement benefit, and like health insurance today, they were selected and managed by an employer — and all kinds of bad behavior resulted in this misalignment of the buyer and the beneficiary. 401(k)s were the consumer-driven answer to this, allowing companies to offer tax-free funds that the employee could manage themselves. Since 401(k)s were easier for employers, the number of businesses offering retirement benefits grew significantly, and the number of employees reaping the tax benefits grew as well.
kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
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 US healthcare.

kevc··on Launch HN: Savvy (YC W20) – Give employees tax-free cash for health insurance
We have an in-app insurance market that offers every ACA-compliant individual health insurance plan in the country, and you can speak 1-1 with a broker to help guide your decision. In the case of someone who is already pregnant, ACA-compliant plans cannot deny you coverage.
kevc··on Let me give you a list of the top scams coding bootcamps use to steal your money
My parents are both practicing physicians, and I am a bootcamp graduated developer. We have talked about this at length, and their conclusion is that there is no real reason why parts of medical education can't be done in a similar manner.

90% of what they learned in medical school is irrelevant to their specialties, and the vast majority of the medicine they practiced was learned 'on the job'.

Medical education is heavily regulated and controlled by licensing organizations, and this is the primary reason why there would never be a disruption in the education model like this. Whether or not this a good thing is tough to answer.

kevc··on Let me give you a list of the top scams coding bootcamps use to steal your money
I know the author would chalk my experience up to 'survivorship bias', but my bootcamp experience was life-changing and 100% positive. I don't know if the quality of bootcamps have gone down, but I did one ~5 years ago, and was very impressed by the talent of my classmates and felt lucky to be with them.

Backgrounds were extremely diverse, from Ivy-league graduate math majors to a former horse trainer. The graduation rate was around 85%, and among the graduates, the 'true' job placement rate was probably around 90%. I was able to hit the ground running in my first software engineering job at a well funded startup, and was on par with other fresh cs degree graduates. Over the next few years I was the first among that class to be given a team leadership role.

Looking at LinkedIn, the other graduates from my bootcamp seem to be having their own successes at FAANG jobs and other strong positions. While I believe my experience was somewhat typical for my bootcamp cohort, (like college) I think quality can vary greatly based on the bootcamp, and I am sure some are bad deals in the ways Zed has outlined.

edit: For those who are wondering if the successful bootcamp grads would have been successful anyways without the bootcamp - 100% no way for me. I had already been self-studying programming before the bootcamp and it was a night and day difference. It would have taken years of self study to learn what I did, and with a good chance that life would have derailed me along the way.

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