Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#81

Post by danssig » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

shirtless_coder wrote: post #39

gamble wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you, but the fact that you were able to start a company without providing health insurance or a salary sufficient to buy it individually is itself a problem. If your employees got sick, it would be spouses' companies or the public that would shoulder the cost. The drag on entrepreneurialism would significantly heavier if companies and individuals weren't allowed to freeload.

No one forced the employees of his company to apply. There should not be restrictions on companies like this. I don't even think there should be a minimum wage. If the employees are walking in the door, and asking for a job, then it's their choice whether to take it or not. When you raise the minimum wage, or require the employer to provide health insurance, you are closing the door on many potential employees and de…

Right. The reason that every first world country in the world has minimum wage is because they want to hurt business as much as possible.

>No one forced the employees of his company to apply.

Companies have been proven to be conspiring to keep wages down just recently. An employee is forced to work somewhere.

But I bet you think the insane amount of money CEOs get is their "market rate" too.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#82

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:13 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #79

To give some perspective I now live in the US and have, as best as I can tell, excellent insurance from my employer. I am Australian and have lived in the UK, Switzerland and Germany so I can compare all of these. Australia has a mix of private and public health care. You pay 1.5% of your income as theMedicare levy. If you have sufficient income but no private hospital insurance, you pay a surcharge (1% iirc). The pr…

[deleted]

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#83

Post by champion » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

Come to Massachusetts! Our health care reform means that the market for private insurance isn't insane. You can afford reasonable coverage for reasonable price through the MassConnector group plans, and they can't deny you because of pre-existing health conditions (they only ask age / number of dependents).

While far from perfect, it is a significant improvement for entrepreneurs who may be buying insurance for themselves and for early employees before funding/revenue to pay for traditional coverage. There are a lot of folks who cannot go without insurance but in many areas the cost of buying outside of an employer is prohibitively expensive or restrictive.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#84

Post by mcculley » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

hugh4life wrote: post #19

Yes, but government ran healthcare is not the answer...

I think context is important. As a US citizen I agree with the general sentiment that the US government isn't competent to run healthcare. Comparisons with Canada and the UK are not helpful because they are different kinds of governments. The notion in the US that government should be as small as possible has yielded a government which cannot be trusted.

The proponents of a single payer system in the US don't address this sufficiently.

A solution for the US would be reform of the health insurance market. Require that health insurance providers be disallowed to refuse coverage to individuals for any reason. Disallow health care providers from charging lower rates to health insurance providers than they do to individual payers.

A free market would work. A single payer system would work. What we have now is in between and will always be bad.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#85

Post by rdouble » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:18 PM UTC

mcculley wrote: post #84

hugh4life wrote: post #19

Yes, but government ran healthcare is not the answer...

I think context is important. As a US citizen I agree with the general sentiment that the US government isn't competent to run healthcare. Comparisons with Canada and the UK are not helpful because they are different kinds of governments. The notion in the US that government should be as small as possible has yielded a government which cannot be trusted. The proponents of a single payer system in the US don't address…

As a US citizen I agree with the general sentiment that the US government isn't competent to run healthcare.

The VA hospitals are actually very well run.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#86

Post by dalore » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

gamble wrote: post #24

enjo wrote: post #6

During our initial phases we lost a potential hire that we really wanted because we just couldn't afford to offer health insurance. They ended up taking a job with a similar startup in Toronto. We had our first hire leave primarily because we couldn't offer health insurance. I'm happy that we're in a place that we can offer those benefits now. Getting through those first couple of years was really tough. If my wife d…

I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you, but the fact that you were able to start a company without providing health insurance or a salary sufficient to buy it individually is itself a problem. If your employees got sick, it would be spouses' companies or the public that would shoulder the cost. The drag on entrepreneurialism would significantly heavier if companies and individuals weren't allowed to freeload.

I think you have got it backwards. Why should companies have to provide health insurance for their employees? It makes it inefficient since people are beholden to their jobs and can't easily change jobs (or start new companies).

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#87

Post by mcculley » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:26 PM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #85

mcculley wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think context is important. As a US citizen I agree with the general sentiment that the US government isn't competent to run healthcare. Comparisons with Canada and the UK are not helpful because they are different kinds of governments. The notion in the US that government should be as small as possible has yielded a government which cannot be trusted. The proponents of a single payer system in the US don't address…

As a US citizen I agree with the general sentiment that the US government isn't competent to run healthcare. The VA hospitals are actually very well run.

That's a good point. I have no experience with VA hospitals. If it is true then I think it would be reasonable to endorse expanding the VA infrastructure to support everybody.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#88

Post by bluekeybox » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:31 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #56

Loic wrote: post #51

For information, here in Germany, from where I run my startup which itself is a UK Limited, I provide my employees with full health insurance (teeth, sick days, everything), pension, unemployment insurance, etc. for basically €700/month for an after tax salary of about €2500/month. As soon as you start to factor in all the costs of insurance, etc., doing business in the old Europe is pretty cheap. Even in Denmark, wh…

Why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? Forcing people to pay into a health insurance is kind of scammy - let's say that I have a genetic condition that is certain to kill me rapidly at age 30. I want to live my life to the fullest, and I'd rather not be forced to buy health insurance that protects me from things like adult onset diabetes, alzheimer's, cancer, parkinson's, etc, that I'm just not…

I disagree with the parent (I think health insurance should be mandatory), but I upvoted the post because I think it contains several arguments that add to the discussion (for example the part with minority health issues being less well researched is correct), and because I dislike the practice of downvoting a post based solely on whether one agrees with the expressed opinion or not.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#89

Post by danssig » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:32 PM UTC

lincolnq wrote: post #75

dnautics wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? Forcing people to pay into a health insurance is kind of scammy - let's say that I have a genetic condition that is certain to kill me rapidly at age 30. I want to live my life to the fullest, and I'd rather not be forced to buy health insurance that protects me from things like adult onset diabetes, alzheimer's, cancer, parkinson's, etc, that I'm just not…

Offtopic, but the parent post should not be downvoted. It clearly adds to the discussion. (I can barely read it to make sense of the replies!) Please, don't downvote when you think someone is wrong; downvote when their post doesn't contribute.

I disagree. The above post does not add anything but propaganda to the discussion. The US has had decades to prove what the poster said was true and utterly failed. "Scammy socialist" health care has utterly won.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#90

Post by danssig » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 1:34 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #62

dotBen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which begs the question, if your company is so small that you can't offer health insurance, 401(k), etc then what is the point of having your employees salaried. You might as well have them as contractors so they can enjoy the maximum tax write offs (health insurance, %age of their home as office, all hardware and software, %age of electricity, internet, etc).

It's not like you can just pick what to call them. An employee is an employee and a contractor is a contractor. If you want someone to work in your office 9-5 and commit their code changes to your server each day, they're an employee, and you can't call them a contractor.

I think you can actually.

EDIT: What's with the downvotes? Companies do call them a contractor. It happens every day. They're are special concerns but they can certainly work 9-5, etc.