Health Glare
I’m still following the health care debate, with a special focus on how it will impact our community’s ability to bootstrap ideas into small businesses.
The New York Times blog offers a great recap of how the pending health care legislation affects small businesses. The legislation provides a mandate for small businesses to provide health insurance, but the fines for not complying end up being far cheaper than providing insurance. It also creates a small business health insurance exchange that may or may not (I bet not) rein in costs.
This makes it cost-effective for small businesses to drop health insurance coverage for their employees. The incentive to provide health care comes not from the government, but from companies who have built a successful business model and are looking to recruit top talent.
But I’m more interested in the bootstrap stage… what happens to the people who want to grow ideas into small businesses. I’ve argued that health care woes, at the margin, limit the field of entrepreneurs who can take the plunge into bootstrapping world. I’d hoped legislation would ease this burden by providing access to affordable insurance. Instead, it raises the hurdle by mandating entrepreneurs purchase coverage, swelling the cost of living for self-starters. In the future, expect the bootstrapping community will skew towards the already-wealthy and away from innovative youngsters the middle class.
At the 9.14 KM view, the bootstrapping community today jump starts the economy of tomorrow. This legislation undeniably burdens American innovation and punishes our enterprising community. The already difficult path to bootstrapping a business just got tougher to traverse. Shame on our leaders.
The plus side is that daredevils will keep playing with fire. No matter how outsized the risk, there’ll always be exceptional risk takers who rise to the challenge. And our community is talented at spinning struggle into opportunity.
Case in point, I’m already exploring starting a health care/venture capital company, one that simply provides discounted health care in exchange for equity in promising ideas. If you have experience in the health care industry, I would love to talk with you about this!
Happy holidays and best wishes to all our readers in the new year.
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