Don’t Have Health Insurance? Start Your Own Insurance Company!

Sara Horowitz was born into a proud union family. Her father worked as a labor lawyer, her grandfather as a vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. So it felt like kismet when, on the first day of a new law firm job, Horowitz discovered that she and several other recent hires had been classified as independent contractors. “We weren’t given retirement or health insurance benefits. We called ourselves ‘the transient workers union,’ and I was made president. We joked about it, but for me it was a significant aha! moment. I started realizing there was this whole new way that workers were being treated.” This was the inception of what has since turned into Horowitz’s all-encompassing calling. Freelance contractors made up 31 percent of the American workforce in 2005, according to a GAO report, and that ratio is almost surely even higher today. As t...