> + I wonder how well they will handle a serious medical cost. One person with an autoimmune disease will easily wipe out their cash on hand - as will a chainsaw accident.
And BINGO! You just discovered why healthcare is so expensive. How are you supposed to get people to work for slave wages at Amazon without the looming threat of hospital bills?
Right: "Our total medical expenditure came to $50,138. This works out to $686.82 per member per year." They don't break the membership down by age, but that's a number for a young healthy group, and completely unrealistic for forward planning. Medical contingencies can be huge. One serious accident with farm equipment or a pregnancy gone sour and they're bankrupt.
And I can't find anything about insurance costs in that article. Surely accident and liability insurance is needed?
East Wind does not use health insurance. We pay out of pocket for medical expenses to the best of our ability. For extreme major medical costs we pay into a joint major medical fund with other FEC communities to distribute such costs. The cost of paying into this was included in the health care expenses.
That fund has paid out $60k for heart surgery for a Twin Oaker, and a $45k emergency helicopter ride for an East Winder.
Taking advantage of state low-income assistance, we manage to enjoy good health care for relatively little.
I am pretty confident that EW is part of the FEC PEACH catastrophic self insurance system. This is a $5K deductable plan which the community pays for up to that level and then the PEACH program takes over costs. This self insurance is available to any community in the FEC network and has been operating successfully for several decades. Powerfully, it succeeds in part based on the idea that you do not sue your own family, and thus all the moneys collected can go to direct medical costs and not to lawyers. If Obamacare is dismantled, this type of system is you best chance for affordable health care, you just have to be willing to share your income to get it.
Anyway, if so (and certainly similar communities were a thing then), some of the founders from then must be 70+ by now. Were those people eligible for Social Security when they passed age 65? i.e., after 40+ years of employment by an organization that doesn't pay FICA or file W-2's -- or do they? And if they do, why isn't that mentioned in an article on the "economics" of the organization?
East Wind, and most income-sharing communities, are 501c6 non-profits, which are organized like a monastery.
They pay income tax on the community's income, which is evenly distributed (for taxation purposes, not as actual outlays) to each member, but is not considered wage income, and thus isn't Social Security income.
Since people's taxed 501c6 income generally doesn't require Social Security payments, it's possible to not be eligible for SS at retirement age, but many people worked enough quarters before joining a community, and their SS benefits are contributed as income to the community when they retire.
And BINGO! You just discovered why healthcare is so expensive. How are you supposed to get people to work for slave wages at Amazon without the looming threat of hospital bills?