Obamacare is NOT about health insurance. It's about catastrophic injury insurance, which you are very, very unlikely to ever need. In the past, in the event of catastrophic injury, you declared bankruptcy and the hospital ate the bill. Now, in theory, some insurance plan will be on the hook for those costs.<p>Because of the way co-pays and deductibles work, you have to be in the top 10% or maybe 15% of health care spenders before you even break even with what you've paid in on a Bronze plan (by far the most popular self-purchased plan). Catastrophic injury type health insurance has been available for awhile, at reasonable rates, unless you had a serious pre-existing condition. So there's not much new here except for improved access for the chronically ill (or their breadwinners), who seem unlikely to be prime candidates for entrepreneurship.<p>It's incredible how much disinformation there is around ACA fueled by political agendas on both sides, and how little most consumers understand of the law's actual impact on the health care and employment markets.
This article seems to make a lot of jumps that I'm not sure I follow. E.g. it says "anywhere from 19% to 50% of non-elderly Americans have some type of pre-existing condition". 29% to 50% is pretty wide range, but what "some type" means? Is it a cold? Is it a case of acne? Is it cancer? Is it debilitating chronic disease costing hundreds of thousands to manage? Is it a trifle that no insurer would care about? No idea. This phrase is completely useless for me if I wanted to estimate if a lot of Americans would be denied coverage due to pre-existing condition or not.<p>>>> The average age of people who create a tech start-up is 39, and not 20-something<p>This may be true, but how many of these people can not afford any health insurance? I know a lot of startups created by millionaires, but also a bunch created by penniless students or completely middle-class people. In what proportion are they among startup founders? Again, if I wanted to evaluate how many startup founders benefit from ACA, I can not do it based on the article.<p>>>> 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,<p>This does not sound convincing - most startups depend on thousands of factors they can not control - from Google releasing competing product a week before their launch to sudden storm in East Asia taking out one of the vital suppliers to fashion change driving clients to or from particular product. Presenting it as if startup founders control everything besides their healthcare costs sounds very non-convincing.<p>Unfortunately, this article makes a claim that is not properly supported by the data in it and can not be evaluated by the reader due to low relevancy of data provided.
I was under the impression this would increase the cost of insurance for younger people in order to allow insurance to better cover older people and those with pre-existing conditions....
From a previous article in the Wall Street Journal [1]:<p>"The Kauffman-RAND Institute for Entrepreneurship Public Policy in Santa Monica, Calif., says the law could increase the number of new U.S. businesses by as much as 33% over several years"<p>[1] <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324059704578471122746420826.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732405970457847...</a>
If only it was health care cost reform instead of insurance reform.<p>I simply do not understand how the 80% of insurance costs being spent or refunded is going to be true.<p>If you pay $5000 a year for insurance and you go for one checkup that year - are they going to give you $4000 back?<p>Somehow I suspect not. And I doubt it covers dental.<p>Everyone is quick to point out you won't lose your insurance for this or that - but can't they just raise the rate to the point where you miss a payment? Last time I checked your car insurance or life insurance is quick to drop you when you miss a payment or two.<p>And just like student loans, I suspect costs are going to rise to the point of your maximum insurance coverage.
I am almost 32 years old and pay $120/month for insurance with Kaiser (I have been very happy with them, and even had surgery done under Kaiser). I don't think this is necessarily a huge expense in the startup world, where people often spend this much on cable tv, cell phone plans, etc. I would guess a fair amount of people interested in entering the startup space are younger and healthier than I am. I am a little bit dubious that such a health care system would cause a startup boom - in fact, if you look at other countries with similar health care policies, they have far fewer startups per capita. This is not to say its a bad idea (you be the judge of that) - just that I don't think it will instill dramatic change in the startup scene.
It's an interesting idea, but this post provides an interesting contrast: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/05/obamacare-job-killer-or-entrepreneurial-turbocharger.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/05/obamacare-j...</a><p>Basically, if insurance coverage is really creating "Job Lock" then the potential entrepreneurs will also likely be locked in by salary needs to.
Hmm. If this is true, then why do there seem to be more (and more successful) tech start-ups in the US under the pre-Obamacare system than there are in, say, the UK, where almost all healthcare is covered by taxes and is free or nearly free at the point of use?<p>I guess it's not implausible that there's a separate factor that makes the US a better place to do a startup, and the current healthcare situation counts against that factor. But still.