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Ask HN: Would Single Payer be Good for Startups?

1 points by cantankerous ↗ HN
I've seen discussion of this point in the comments many times. I myself wonder about the anecdote of the person who can't join a startup or form a startup because they depend on their health insurance (kids, family, chronic diseases like diabetes, for example). I'm not sure how often this situation occurs, but I have heard people of all stripes say something to the effect of "I'd start a business if I could have healthcare for me or my family" or "If you're going to start a business, I hope your spouse has a good healthcare policy." I can't help but feel this is a big issue, but I don't know how big the impact of lack of healthcare portability is in the US.

So my question to HN is two-fold: Is lack of healthcare for those starting a business (or joining a bootstrap-py startup) a real inhibitor to innovation and access to good talent in startups? Secondly, would single payer be a good model to alleviate these negative effects? If not, what do you think might be a good compromise in this direction, granted it is a real problem?

2 comments

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briandear
Ask yourself this: are Canadian or British companies having an easier time with startups than American companies?

Single payer or not is not a significant factor in the success of a startup. If it were then single-payer countries would be enjoying a decided advantage against the US, which they're not. If a potential founder is seeing a lack of insurance as a barrier to entry, then it's likely that potential founder does not have the fortitude to survive creating a new company.

logjam
Utter nonsense. Reread what you just wrote. You somehow seem to really want us to believe, say, that because lemon growers choose California as a startup site and that California doesn't have single payer and Canada does, healthcare policy doesn't matter to startups.

We can do better than that. Here are some entrepreneurs explaining what they love about single payer:

http://biznik.com/articles/the-canadian-healthcare-experienc...

http://www.shindigital.com/blogpost/18

Here's an MIT economist explaining how "job lock" resulting from the need to maintain health insurance cripples the American economy and entrepreneurship:

"The type of universal health insurance coverage policy proposed by President Obama will clearly promote the freedom of workers to leave their jobs to start new companies. By solving a major impediment to mobility in the U.S. labor market, a larger government goes hand in hand with more business development. The next John Galt may owe a debt of gratitude to this pioneering effort in universal coverage."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0905.gruber.h...

Here's INC magazine touting Obamacare (not single payer, but infinitely better than what "the market" has given us) as good for entrepreneurs:

http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/affordable-care-act-and-e...