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If you squint really hard, universal health care could be seen as pro-entrepreneurship, since it does away with this large barrier to working for a fledgeling c

If you squint really hard, universal health care could be seen as pro-entrepreneurship, since it does away with this large barrier to working for a fledgeling company.

me2i81 16y ago
You don't really have to squint very hard at all. Unless you have more than 10 or so employees it's almost impossible to get a group health plan. Young people don't worry about this as much as perhaps they should, but once you get to the age where most people you know have families, it becomes a huge barrier to starting a company.
tptacek 16y ago
You don't have to squint even a little bit to see that. Almost any reasonable guaranteed issue health insurance plan would drastically assist entrepreneurship. I say this every time this issue comes up on HN: in the first couple years of Matasano, one of the top 3 reasons candidates declined to work with us was health insurance. There's even a term for this among the muggles in the mainstream media: "job-lock". It's very real. If you have a family, job lock is one of the major things keeping you from starting a company, or become a freelancer (a good first step towards entrepreneurship).
- jcr 16y ago
  As mentioned "Job Lock" is a very real problem, but it's not as bad as "Provider Lock" --being permanently locked into a particular insurance and/or healthcare provider due to a pre-existing condition. In other words, if you somehow lost your insurance, no one else would insure you. Being locked into a health provider can be devastating in a number of different ways.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I'm not sure those are even different issues; if you get seriously ill while on your BigCo Kaiser plan, you're stuck at BigCo; even Kaiser isn't going to cover you if you switch jobs (and thus plans).
    - mrkurt 16y ago
      You can pretty safely move jobs and group plans even when you have a pre-existing condition, provided there's no significant break in coverage. It's part of the "portability" portion of HIPAA.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        Wow. I didn't know that. I yield all my comment's karma to the man whose comment is actually correct. I think I missed this because portability doesn't guarantee issuance of individual (non-group) health insurance. It's a very good thing for people who change jobs, but not a very good thing for people who want to start companies.
        mrkurt 16y ago
        Right, it doesn't help for individual plans. It does allow you to string together group plans you might be able to get into otherwise though. Our plan for this is basically: COBRA -> Student health insurance (wife's school) -> ???
bokchoi 16y ago
I don't think you need to squint that hard.
ylem 16y ago
I have had friends who have kept a day job just for the health insurance...
- wallflower 16y ago
  A lot of the entrepreneur friends I know are married to wives who have relatively stable jobs and good healthcare insurance.

If you squint really hard, universal health care could be seen as pro-entrepreneurship, since it does away with this large barrier to working for a fledgeling company.

me2i81 16y ago

You don't really have to squint very hard at all. Unless you have more than 10 or so employees it's almost impossible to get a group health plan. Young people don't worry about this as much as perhaps they should, but once you get to the age where most people you know have families, it becomes a huge barrier to starting a company.

tptacek 16y ago

You don't have to squint even a little bit to see that. Almost any reasonable guaranteed issue health insurance plan would drastically assist entrepreneurship. I say this every time this issue comes up on HN: in the first couple years of Matasano, one of the top 3 reasons candidates declined to work with us was health insurance. There's even a term for this among the muggles in the mainstream media: "job-lock". It's very real. If you have a family, job lock is one of the major things keeping you from starting a company, or become a freelancer (a good first step towards entrepreneurship).

jcr 16y ago
As mentioned "Job Lock" is a very real problem, but it's not as bad as "Provider Lock" --being permanently locked into a particular insurance and/or healthcare provider due to a pre-existing condition. In other words, if you somehow lost your insurance, no one else would insure you. Being locked into a health provider can be devastating in a number of different ways.
- tptacek 16y ago
  I'm not sure those are even different issues; if you get seriously ill while on your BigCo Kaiser plan, you're stuck at BigCo; even Kaiser isn't going to cover you if you switch jobs (and thus plans).
  - mrkurt 16y ago
    You can pretty safely move jobs and group plans even when you have a pre-existing condition, provided there's no significant break in coverage. It's part of the "portability" portion of HIPAA.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Wow. I didn't know that. I yield all my comment's karma to the man whose comment is actually correct. I think I missed this because portability doesn't guarantee issuance of individual (non-group) health insurance. It's a very good thing for people who change jobs, but not a very good thing for people who want to start companies.
      - mrkurt 16y ago
        Right, it doesn't help for individual plans. It does allow you to string together group plans you might be able to get into otherwise though. Our plan for this is basically: COBRA -> Student health insurance (wife's school) -> ???

bokchoi 16y ago

I don't think you need to squint that hard.

ylem 16y ago

I have had friends who have kept a day job just for the health insurance...

wallflower 16y ago
A lot of the entrepreneur friends I know are married to wives who have relatively stable jobs and good healthcare insurance.