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Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom

Posted by Unknown on from the communist-healthcare-would-have-helped-more dept.

dcblogs writes "The arrival of Obamacare may make it easier for some employees to quit their full-time jobs to launch tech start-ups, work as a freelance consultant, or pursue some other solo career path. Most tech start-up founders are older and need health insurance. 'The average age of people who create a tech start-up is 39, and not 20-something,' said Bruce Bachenheimer, who heads Pace University's Entrepreneurship Lab. Entrepreneurs are willing to take on risks, but health care is not a manageable risk, he said. 'There is a big difference between mortgaging your house on something you can control, and risking going bankrupt by an illness because of something you can't control,' said Bachenheimer. Donna Harris, the co-founder of the 1776 incubation platform in Washington, believes the healthcare law will encourage more start-ups. 'You have to know that there are millions of Americans who might be fantastic and highly successful entrepreneurs who are not pursuing that path because of how healthcare is structured,' said Harris"

10 of 671 comments (clear)

  1. yep by geekoid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If th e US has a civilized Health Care system, I would start my own business much easier. Or join a start up without worrying about health care.

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    1. Re:yep by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I do have the impression at this point that ACA does not do enough to decouple health care financing from employment

      Hear, hear! Health care should be completely decoupled from employment. That would be pro-business, and I'm always amazed it hasn't been promoted as such. It works for Canada and many other countries.

    2. Re:yep by cyclopropene · · Score: 5, Informative

      Most Silicon Valley startups offer healthcare.........if they don't, they are horrifically underfunded and you should avoid them.

      It takes time to obtain funding. The article is talking about the people who take a risk and actually launch startups, and their health insurance during the time that they are pitching their ideas to investors to obtain the funding to offer insurance to new employees, not people like you, who only join after the funding is secured.

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      Shouldn't you be doing something useful?
    3. Re:yep by linuxguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      > He was promised he could keep his insurance if he liked it.

      This may come as shocking news to you, but the health insurance rates have been going up for about 20 years or more. And we all know that it is because of Obamacare. It was having a negative impact, decades before it existed.

  2. Exactly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the things the haters don't get is how big an implicit tax we pay because we don't have universal health care. Other countries pay far less per person, with far less risk. You may not be thinking about it when you're 20 something and healthy, but in a moment you can lose everything because you're not covered.

    1. Re:Exactly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it right to make people buy national defense?

      Is it right to make people buy a national highway system?

      Is it right to make people buy federal inspections to ensure safe water supplies and food?

      Here's the answer... unless you are an anarchist, it is perfectly alright to make people take responsibility for themselves and not allow them to shift the cost of their health care onto the rest of the public by getting it for free from emergency room services, who then bill the rest of us with insurance to make up for it. It is perfectly reasonable to make the public participate in a program which will allow people to feel like visiting the doctor before they start an epidemic will not bankrupt them.

  3. Re:Really by seebs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, sure. And we had prosperous booms without computers, too. That people succeeded without something isn't evidence that having it won't help them.

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  4. Re:Unmitigated bullshit by Telvin_3d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like any other form of tax, Obamacare's net results will be negative in employment

    As a truism, that's bullshit. And it's not even entertaining bullshit.

    Let's pretend it was taken to it's logical extreme, aka a society with zero taxes. Also known as a society with no roads, no enforced laws, no food inspection, no building codes, etc. You really thing that's a better functioning society with increased employment? Now, obviously a society at the other extreme (100% taxes) is equally dysfunctional. Arguments can be made for lower taxes (and certainly better spent taxes), and arguments can be made for raising taxes in some circumstances (certainly worked in California lately), but to say lower taxes are always better is so stupid it's not even wrong.

  5. Taxes by manu0601 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The level of the taxes is not really important. What is at stake is what you get for the taxes. If taxes pay for education and healthcare, businesses get educated and healthy workers. If it pays a war in Iraq, it just benefits businesses linked to defense (well.. I should say war instead of defense).

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion