By admin 
One of the most challenging parts of freelancing is figuring out what you’re going to do about healthcare. Unlike traditional workplaces, which provide employees with healthcare plans, freelancers typically do not receive insurance plans from their clients. This can often leave freelancers in a precarious position, forcing them to pay high out-of-pocket prices for health insurance plans, relying on a partner’s employer healthcare coverage, or in certain cases, forgoing insurance entirely.
New legislation seeks to change this, clearing barriers for clients to disperse money into an independent worker’s account to use for healthcare and other benefits like time off. These accounts would then stay with the worker throughout the rest of their gigs, accumulating money from different sources, and as such are known as portable benefits.
This could have enormous potential for freelancers who struggle to build a safety net — however, it must be done correctly, and with workers’ needs put first.
The bill that’s been introduced is called Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act, introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), as part of a legislative package created with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-SC) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Under the bill, companies could invest in benefits like healthcare of their independent workers, but it can also shield them from misclassification lawsuits.
Some labor experts see it as a way for companies — particularly Lyft and Uber — to side-step classifying their workers as employees, and allowing them to abscond from paying the costs associated with a full-time worker, like unemployment insurance and workers comp. Plus, the ability to opt into these programs is completely voluntary, and a pilot program in Pennsylvania saw DoorDash workers seeing only minimal gains from such an account.
“These proposals would make it easier for large corporations to misclassify workers as independent contractors, in order to avoid paying them decent wages and decent benefits. These bills are not about giving workers the freedom to work,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told ABC7. The senator has introduced his own bill, Pensions for All, to help those without retirement plans gain coverage.
Freelancers Union executive director Rafael Espinal appeared on NY1 to assess the current opportunities and challenges that portable benefits present.
“Republicans have a history of putting corporate interests first, which is why I want to see Democrats step up to the table and start advocating for the needs of the workers,” Espinal said.
If you want to ensure that portable benefits puts your interests and needs above that of corporations, we encourage you to reach out to your elected officials and ask them what their stance is on portable benefits, and what they plan to do about it.
This could be a huge opportunity to move forward the conversation on workers’ rights — but it all depends on who’s speaking.