I found this on buzzfeed, while doing academic research for this blog post.
In the business world, it’s not quite as funny when good intentions are misunderstood. Which is why companies generally can’t offer healthcare benefits to independent contractors. Even if they would like to, they can’t.
Good intentions would be misunderstood, and the effect of offering healthcare coverage to independent contractors would likely be that they are turned into employees.
Why?
The law limits who can sell health insurance coverage. You need a license. It’s the same reason I can’t work as an Aquatic Antifouling Paint Operator in New York State. If you want to commercially apply antifouling paints, which are pesticides, on vessel hulls, boat bottoms, or other other marine surfaces to inhibit the growth of aquatic organisms, you need an Aquatic Antifouling Paint Operator license. (Apply here.)
Companies that aren’t licensed to sell healthcare insurance can’t go around selling healthcare insurance. But there’s a narrow exception, which allows companies to offer healthcare insurance to its employees. The exception doesn’t extend to vendors, suppliers, or independent contractors. Only employees.
Some of the large rideshare app companies have advocated for legal reform that would allow them to offer more benefits to independent contractor drivers. But there’s not much they can do right now. Companies without a license to sell healthcare insurance can only offer healthcare insurance to its employees, not to independent contractors.
Some companies have begun to get creative in an effort to offer more benefits to independent contractor drivers. According to benefitsnews.com, some app companies are beginning to offer limited benefits, such as access to accident insurance, free online college courses, and professional certifications.
Some states, such as New York, have considered legislation that would expand the availability of benefits to independent contractors, but the current state of the law severely restricts what companies can do.
The legal problem for companies who want to offer more benefits to contractors is not just that they can’t sell healthcare insurance to non-employees. It’s also that the more benefits they offer to contractors, the more those contractors may start to resemble employees. Since U.S. law currently sees the Employee vs. Independent Contractor issue as binary — you can only be one or the other — companies who offer increased employee-like benefits to contractors run the risk that the contractors will be deemed their employees, which creates a whole big mess of other legal problems.
A company might wish to provide healthcare coverage to independent contractors, but the company’s good intentions would be misunderstood. Which is also why if you want a haircut and dye, you should just type it into your phone’s calendar instead of just telling Siri.
© 2019 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.
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