
Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk - kdsudac
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/jon-stewart-proposes-an-entrepreneurial-policy-dont-laugh/
======
jcromartie
Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing
the risky innovative companies that America is. But, as far as I can tell,
health insurance really is the biggest factor keeping people from starting new
companies.

For myself and my peers, with new families and houses and student debt, etc.,
it's the _one thing_ that scares us more than anything else. The prospect of a
business going under is nowhere near as terrifying of getting caught off guard
without health insurance. It's positively paralyzing, knowing that it is
something that could be essentially impossible to recover from, unlike simply
writing off a failed venture. Hopefully the Affordable Care Act will mitigate
some of that.

~~~
suresk
_Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing
the risky innovative companies that America is._

Could this be because countries with broader safety nets also have more
regulation and make it hard to fire people?

I've always kind of thought a combination of making it easy to hire people and
let them go, along with strong safety nets (ie, good unemployment insurance
and not having health care tied to employment) would be optimal.

~~~
_delirium
Denmark has been moving in that direction. Its overall level of safety nets,
taxation, infrastructure spending, etc. is _much_ higher than in the U.S. (tax
revenues about 2x as high, as a percentage of GDP). But in some ways it's
actually more privatized: for example, the bus system in Copenhagen is bid out
to private corporations to operate. The government comes up with the fares,
set of routes, etc., and then the corporations bid on how much subsidy they'd
need to operate under the specified parameters (Movia won the current
contract). Whereas, most American transit systems are operated by city or
state employees.

And: it's fairly easy to fire someone, certainly easier than in most of the
rest of Europe. The compensating factor is that the social safety net for the
person who gets fired is also quite good, and not just in monetary benefits,
but in active assistance to help them find a new job (both through job banks
and training/internship programs). Incidentally, _that_ is also outsourced,
with a number of private (though subsidized and nonprofit) "a-kasse" social-
insurance organizations competing for members. I'm a member of one that
specializes in researchers, for example. If I become unemployed, for the first
two years I would deal with them, not with the state. That tends to lead to
people joining the organizations that they feel will provide the best job-
finding assistance. Some element of competition is introduced, since a totally
useless a-kasse would (hopefully) see an outflux of members.

~~~
zerostar07
Denmark has a reputation for being the most flexible job market in northern
europe. I wonder if this strategy has payed dividends basedon your experience

------
thaumaturgy
OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon
Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire.

 _But._

I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship.

I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business
owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we _should_ be saying is
that these people are vitally important to our economy and to our nation's
future, just as much as larger enterprise is, and we should support that.

But the thing is, most people don't want to run their own business no matter
how safe you make it. I've spent the last few years encouraging people around
me to start or run or improve their businesses, but so many of them just want
to be a professional in their field; they don't want to deal with all of the
other aspects of running a business.

So don't lower entrepreneurial risk because you think it will open more
businesses, because you think that the guy with a good paying job and some
savings is worried about his health insurance. If he (or she!) wants to open
or run a business, he (or she!) will do that regardless. It's one of the few
probably universal aspects of entrepreneurship that the people who will do
well at it aren't really happy working for other people anyway, they have this
itch that they can't scratch unless they strike out on their own, risks or
not.

But _do_ lower entrepreneurial risk because you recognize the value of
entrepreneurs and you want to make sure that small business owners with
families can still get good health care and dental care and afford a modest
living.

~~~
Nogwater
I agree that starting a business isn't for everyone. I'm doubtful that I would
enjoy it, but I would like to be an early employee at a company. If that
company can't afford health coverage, then I can't take that risk for my
family.

It just baffles me that health coverage is so tied to where you work. What if
you could only send your kids to the schools that your employer selected, or
eat at the restaurants the your company had a deal with? It's just weird. I
don't know if government provided insurance is the solution, but employer
provided just doesn't make sense as the only solution.

~~~
jkeel
What I think would be a better solution that could fit in everyone's worldview
(those that want a more socialized health care system and those who don't want
a powerful federal government) is to have cities provide a public health
insurance option that a person or business could buy into.

I think that the risk pool would be large and the members would be local (thus
giving more rights to local communities rather than the federal government).

I think it could then encourage cities to be more healthy cities (less
pollution, more activities for locals, encourage walking/biking rather than
driving) in order to drive down health care costs for their citizens. Being a
healthier city would then encourage people to move to there thus increasing
the risk pool.

Citizens wouldn't be required to purchase through them but the plans could
still be managed by private companies like Aetna, Cigna, etc. so that the
plans could be used when local citizens travel to other parts of the country.

~~~
Anechoic
_have cities provide a public health insurance option that a person or
business could buy into._

That only works if _all_ cities have plans, otherwise you can find yourself
trapped staying in a city that same way that one might find himself trapper
working for an employer.

~~~
jkeel
Good point! I guess I was looking at it as an advantage and other cities would
start their own program to compete just like employers do today. I just
figured people tend to not move geographically as much as they change jobs.

------
digisth
This is the essence of the Peltzman Effect
([http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/01/peltzman-effect-why-
eco...](http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/01/peltzman-effect-why-economic-
growth-has.html) and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation>)

"Risk compensation (also Peltzman effect, risk homeostasis) is an observed
effect in ethology whereby people tend to adjust their behavior in response to
perceived level of risk, behaving less cautiously where they feel more
protected and more cautiously where they feel a higher level of risk. The
theory emerged out of road safety research after it was observed that many
interventions failed to achieve the expected level of benefits but has since
found application in many other fields."

~~~
dmfdmf
The industry joke at the time this research came out was that if the
regulators were serious about auto safety they should mandate a sharp dagger
sticking out from the steering wheel aim directly at the driver's chest.
People would drive _very_ carefully!

~~~
ktizo
If you did that some people would regard the dagger as the perfect place to
attach their mobile phone on long journeys.

~~~
dxbydt
You know, this is why I keep coming back to hn ..even the comedy is
mindblowing.

------
arohner
The US already has the most lenient bankruptcy law in the world. It already
has the highest "social tolerance" for entrepreneurial failure.

I'm in great health, and young, so I'm not worried about saving for retirement
(yet). But starting a company is still really damned hard. It's years of hard
work, too much time at the office, too much time away from friends and family.
Too much fear that tomorrow no customers will show up, or they'll go to your
competitors or you'll find our your DB backups don't work and you have to go
out of business. It's fear that you're not managing employees correctly, or
not hiring the right people, or not prioritizing the right things.

The government can't make any of those things go away. And the only issue it
could help is money, which has terrible downsides to go along with it.

~~~
jeffool
Speaking of bankruptcy laws, I wonder how the ballooning student debt (which
cannot be dismissed through bankruptcy) plays into that.

Anecdotal, but, did (m)any people here on HN graduate and then start a
business while still in debt with student loans?

~~~
jacoblyles
I started a business with a ton of student loans (almost 6 figures). I
actually took out an extra student loan I didn't need and put it into Apple
stock, using the gains to last another two months. And then I went into credit
card debt.

I don't recommend doing all that. You can put away $20k pretty easily working
in the Valley. That would be much less stressful.

------
scottchin
One of the key comments made by Jon Stewart:

 _What we need to do in this country is make it a softer cushion for failure.
Because what they say is the job creators need more tax cuts and they need a
bigger payoff on the risk that they take. … But what about the risk of, you’re
afraid to leave your job and be an entrepreneur because that’s where your
health insurance is? … Why aren’t we able to sell this idea that you don’t
have to amplify the payoff of risk to gain success in this country, you need
to soften the damage of risk?_

------
akurilin
Without some kind of medical safety net, quitting your job to start a business
becomes the luxury exclusive to the really healthy, the single, the really
rich or the really lucky.

If you have any kind of condition that requires continuous oversight, you're
screwed unless you have a ton of money saved up to afford a very expensive
insurance plan.

If you're initially healthy, but suddenly get seriously ill, you might be set
back by 7-10 grand before your cheapo $100/mo insurance plan kicks in. Even
then you might still have to fight against the insurance company to have the
necessary care approved and covered. You might hit the limits of your
coverage.

If you have a family, you better hope that your spouse's job provides you with
a comprehensive family-wide coverage, otherwise you'll have to deal with the
exorbitant costs of insurance.

It's clearly sub-optimal, but the conservative side will often argue in favor
of this system. I've (anecdotally) been told that if we provide everybody with
universal health care then the masses will all start shooting up heroin all
day and we, the hard working citizens, will have to foot the bill.

~~~
Evbn
Or the very poor or old who quality for Medicare/Medicaid.

------
ComputerGuru
I have to respectfully go against the crowd here and disagree.

When you're leaving your job to start a business, the assumption is that you
have _some_ money saved. You're guaranteed not to be turning profit for a
certain period of time. Depending on how lucky and how good you/your idea are,
that could be anywhere from a month to a year or two.

Not having government health insurance just means you'll have to get your own.
I am speaking here from experience: I quit my job, posted about it on HN,
bought myself health insurance, and started my own software company.

How much did the health insurance cost me? 200 dollars a month. (Edit: yes,
this is in the USA. IL to be exact.)

Yes, 200 dollars is not nothing. Yes, it would be nice to not have to pay
that. But then again, I'm paying 1200 for my apartment, 80 for my cellphone,
80 for electricity, and I'm sure I can come up with some other monthly
obligations that I have. Health insurance is maybe ~10% of my "maintenance
costs" that I can't avoid.

Why aren't we arguing that the government should provide apartments for
everyone so they don't have to worry about finding a place to live when they
take the risk of leaving their jobs? Or require special restaurants that are
publicly funded so that you don't have to worry about that, either?

I know a lot of people will take issue with this, but, keep in mind, I am
_not_ saying I'm against government health insurance. I'm saying that _this_
isn't a very good reason for it. Going off on your own is and always will be a
risky situation, unless you're already independently wealthy. By definition,
it involves giving up a cushy job and steady pay for the _chance_ of striking
it rich on your own or (as in my case) doing what you love. That's the nature
of the beast, and that's why we have both entrepreneurs and employees.

~~~
ericabiz
Hi. I am an entrepreneur, and like you, I sought out my own health insurance.
Where I differ from you: 1) I am female. 2) I have a prescription for birth
control.

Currently, my birth control prescription is through Planned Parenthood, and
it's cost me about $25/month for many years.

When I applied for my own health insurance, they asked me to list any
prescription drugs I took. Even though I get checkups and my birth control
prescription from Planned Parenthood, I dutifully listed it in the form
(knowing, too, that lying about this might cause me to get disqualified if I
claimed something later.)

I received a letter from the insurance company that I had been declined for
insurance. Reason? Prescription medication. This was the _only_ prescription I
was on at the time. Yes, apparently the fact that I have a prescription for
birth control makes it worth it for a health insurance company to not insure
me. This is _completely legal_ for any insurance carrier to do in the United
States if you are a single person applying for insurance. And guess what? Once
you've been declined for single-person health insurance for any reason, you're
pretty much screwed.

I don't know what the solution is, and I don't think our government got it
100% right when they passed different laws recently. But I also know that
something is not right when I can get declined for health insurance for being
on birth control (that the insurance company would not have even had to pay
for anyway.)

The system is broken, and you are the exception. Let us hope that you never
have a spouse who would like to be on birth control, or that you never have to
take a prescription drug for any reason for any length of time.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I take some prescription allergy pills. Probably cost the same as your birth
control medication.

The catch? I signed up over the phone. I made sure to stress how I won't be
going through the insurance for these, how it won't be a cost for them. A
human on the other end of the line - no matter how dedicated he is to finding
a reason to say no - is better than a soulless piece of paper.

------
rayiner
I absolutely support this. I think a lot more experienced people would do
startups if they didn't have to risk their families' health in the process.
And I think there is a lot of benefit to experienced people doing startups
versus young kids who can tolerate the risk because they have little to lose.

------
vinhboy
A lot of people are talking in terms of "leaving" their jobs to start
businesses.

For me, it's the opposite. I am considering leaving my business to get a job.

Why? Healthcare and retirement.

So I agree with the article. If we had universal healthcare, I don't think I
would ever consider leaving my business.

------
dools
I agree entirely. I'm only one data point but I've only been able to get as
far as I have in business because of the good graces of the Australian tax,
welfare and health system.

Perhaps this is why the model for entrepreneurship in the US is so heavily
geared towards huge, VC funded worldbeaters with far less "mircopreneurship" -
a trait of the Australian economy that is said to be a mainstay of economic
resilience.

------
cmcbride
or we could remove the tax break for employers that provide health insurance.
If health insurance was tied to the individual it would stay with them in
between jobs. You could also find plans with lower premiums and higher
deductibles/less coverage if there was a market for insurance.

~~~
EvanAnderson
A thousand times this. We've distanced the individual from the costs
associated with all things medical and, in so doing, have removed a lot of the
power of having a free market.

------
theinformantguy
Jon just nailed the problem in the head: frankly I'm tired of hearing rich
kids talking about _how easy_ it is just to leave everything you are doing and
make a startup, and to add insult to injury the new buzzword is to say that
you don't even need an idea.

Yeah sure you can leave your job or college and just start throwing darts at
post-its to come up with an app idea if you have a rich dad who is willing to
bankroll your adventure in the Bay Area. You need at least $36k a year just to
rent a decent flat in that place, some families, not just people but actual
families, live on less than that in this country.

I had friends on highschool who had tremendous hacker potential, but they also
had problems, REAL problems like bad health and a poor family. Most of them
are quite happy right now working for the evil corporations that pay them
those $75k a year salaries that the rich kids laugh at. They depend on company
healthcare and can't even dream to let that and their paychecks go just to
give startups a try.

And that is just one side of the problem, the other is the facade of equal
opportunities in startups, the idea that everyone applying to YC or other
incubators is in the same level.

The social network movie made a lot of generic hacker culture statements but
it forgot to mention that the zuck had a private programming tutor paid by his
parents. Seriously, how many of you here had parents who could afford that? I
tried to hire a Java tutor when I was in highschool and it was incredibly
expensive, more than hiring several tutors for most of my school subjects.

I have met entrepreneurs with amazing companies that didn't get into YC, yet
the guys from diaspora, the same guys who burned through a quarter of a
million and did next to nothing, they got in, and with what? a meme app,
because that's important, another memegenerator clone.

I'm using a throwaway account because I know this is going to be downvoted to
hell, many of these rich kids make an overwhelming clique in HN and other
sites, and they don't like when it when someone speaks up and shatters their
BS.

The irony here is that this country is fast becoming like the third world
hellholes that immigrant entrepreneurs where escaping from. The stories you
hear from those places are becoming eerily familiar: a guy from South America
told me how over there all entrepreneurs are rich kids, legacies from
generations of crony capitalism and favoritism. Practically none are coders or
hustlers, they get their parents to bankroll a clone a cookie-cutter startup
and take advantage of the wage slave condition of engineers over there, after
all what are those poor souls going to do? they can't afford to make a startup
and don't have any connections to investors, so what is left for them? get a
visa and come here? nice try...

And that is what America is becoming, a place not of opportunity but of class
lockdown, social mobility is at an all-time low and everywhere you hear
pundits whose idea of equality in America is actually that of Sweden's, which
ironically is a socialist country.

But go ahead, keep believing we are all in the same league, by all means try
to defeat my point by saying how you _help_ other less fortunate entrepreneurs
with your link-bait blog full of empty advice, keep saying that all of us who
are not in the same position than you are a bunch of envious and resentful
pricks, or that you are where you are right now because you worked for it when
actually you are where you are right now because you were half the way ahead
to being with.

------
netmau5
This addresses a larger issue, but the specifics discussed hit home with me. I
started my company several months ago and lost my health insurance. After
paying into the system for the last 8 years, I feel like I've just been giving
my money away. I had always been under the impression that I could never be
denied for insurance if I had an existing policy but obviously that was
misguided.

I'm overweight, I'm a smoker, and I have high blood pressure. Starting a
company could literally kill me (on top of aforementioned dumb decisions). The
rich used to pay 90% taxes and we still had Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Morgan.

~~~
arbuge
No... Those folks had no income tax. Income tax came later.

The 90% bracket was extremely high when it existed and snared very few people.

~~~
zecho
Could you elaborate? The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and from what I
can tell the top marginal rate was in the 90s until 1964...

[http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213)

~~~
arbuge
The 3 billionaires mentioned were pre-1913. Morgan might have had a little bit
of overlap.

The 90% tax rate was indeed in effect but very few people fell victim to it:
[http://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-
myth...](http://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth.html)

------
chubbard
Great Scott! It's just crazy enough it might just work!

I've always felt that America's psyche is evolving us to a "Everybody's a
CEO." mentality. With the introduction of 401K we upped the risk taking,
driving white collar workers into consulting away from full time employment
with benefits of incorporating, tax benefits of corporations, preferential tax
treatment of capital gains vs salaries. These are all incentives to create
your own corporation over being a salaried employee, but they all involve
taking more risk. We are rewarding risk more and more while devaluing safety.
Not passing judgement per se, but making an observation that America might be
interested in this if they understood it. And that America might need this
anyway because we are pushing more people into accepting the risk without
their choice. (see 401K as an example).

Another side benefit to this is it might drive up competition for workers
because more people might be interested in working for smaller companies
because benefits are more equalized. Driving competition for workers means
higher salaries too on a whole as they compete for the talent. That's the real
societal benefit.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to pay myself entirely in dividends over
a salary I think they might give me an honorary 1%'er membership. :-)

But on the other hand. All I know is that it won't be that much fun when
everyone is doing it. It never is.

------
bcx
We can pretty clearly see that lowering risk is increasing the number of
software startups. You can see a pretty clear micro example of this just by
looking at YC applications.

The number of YC Applicants has increased as the risk of doing YC has gone
down.

When someone going into YC had an expected outcome of basically $25000, less
people were willing to leave jobs to go start companies. Think about pre 2009
YCombinator.

Now consider post 2009 Ycombinator.

As the process became less risky: more guaranteed capital (the Ron Conway,
Yuri Milner portfolio strategy), and more Acquahires. The value of the average
company went up, the downsides went down, and the risk to starting a company
went down. Thus, more people were willing to apply to YC, and Paul and the YC
partners were able to accept more companies.

You could probably argue that this was a function of the popularity of YC. I
believe that founders are rational, and the popularity of YC again decreased
their risk. How many founders do not quit their jobs until they get into YC?
(many)

This is a separate argument from whether or not we need government healthcare,
but I think it's pretty clear that risk evaluation is absolutely part of being
an entrepreneur.

(As an aside, dealing with healthcare is just one of many things that we as
founders have to do that provides very little net benefit to our business. The
less of this BS we have to do, the better we will deploy capital and the more
focused we will be on important problems)

------
blago
So sad that in the US people like him host comedy shows.

~~~
dxbydt
I don't know what you are talking about. The Daily Show is not comedy. Its
where everybody under the age of 30 gets the news from. Fox News - now that's
comedy. Seriously, they crack me up. And if you want tragedy, there's always
MSNBC. CNN - I don't know what that is - maybe comedians trying their hand at
tragedy. You see their chief mascot Anderson Cooper standing knee deep in
flood water, or being blown around by stormy winds, or sweating it out in
tropical weather, and seriously wonder about his health and well being.

~~~
skylan_q
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005632/Jon-
Stewart-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005632/Jon-Stewart-
loses-cool-Fox-News-host-Chris-Wallace-You-insane.html)

Mr Stewart erupted: 'You're insane... Here's the difference between you and I.

'I'm a comedian first. My comedy is informed by an ideological background,
there's no question about that.

Stewart has a large audience, and he's feeding people his brand of BS. With
such a large viewership, he has a great responsiblity but he is acting as if
he doesn't. He cops out by saying "I'm just a comedian"

The suggestion of a "social safety net" for entrepreneurs can only come from
such a man who doesn't take on responsibility and who isn't an entrepreneur.

A real entrepreneur starts a company, takes responsibility for it, and assumes
the risks. Putting up a safety net for this will just tax middle-class
families that much more, and make it even harder for someone to start up a
company and be dedicated to it.

~~~
eli
This seems an ad hominem argument.

I am a real entrepreneur with a real company taking on real risk... and I
absolutely believe healthcare is a _huge_ problem for entrepreneurs. Providing
health coverage for early employees is very expensive for a startup. The
alternative of not offering coverage greatly restricts your hiring pool in a
way that is unacceptable. And, IMHO, it's often unfair to the people you do
hire.

------
pinchyfingers
Consider the organizational qualities that create successful startups:
agility, speed and clear vision. Entrepreneurs live and die by efficiency and
effectiveness. This is the exact opposite of what government programs give us.
Believing that any government initiative will enable entrepreneurship is
naive. Founders relying on a government cushion to lower risk will be inviting
unnecessary encumbrance.

Government programs across the board, from corporate tax credits to welfare
programs are universally gamed. Creating a government net to catch failing
entrepreneurs will only increase the cost of doing business, while slowing
down the pace of entrepreneurship.

Is the goal here to promote new businesses, or is that just an excuse to push
for socialized health care? If the goal is provide health care, then the best
option is to lower the barrier of entry for new businesses in the health
field, whether insurance providers, healthcare practitioners or pharmaceutical
companies. This is another topic, but there are many safe and legitimate ways
to do this by cutting out corruption and waste.

~~~
kalleboo
If government programs are so inefficient, why is U.S. healthcare the most
expensive per capita in the world? I just don't buy the argument that
governments do everything terribly.

~~~
pinchyfingers
Government inefficiency is the cause of unreasonable expense of U.S.
healthcare.

~~~
kalleboo
But all the other healthcare systems, which are cheaper, have equal or far
higher levels of government intervention.

------
sodafountan
I think that this would result in hundreds of thousands of bad ideas hitting
the marketplace and then the government having to bail out all of the crap
that didn't succeed. Risk is there for a reason, it's to stop you from doing
something stupid, to make you think twice about the decision you're about to
make. I don't believe that we need government to bail out risk takers... not
with the amount of national debt that we already have.

You know what happend the last time there was no risk? Banks lended out sub-
prime mortgages to just about anyone with a job that walked in the door. You
know why they were able to do this? Because those sub-prime loans where
bundled up and then sold off to investment banks which then packaged them as
mortgage-backed securities. We all know how that one turned out... Risk is a
necessary part of life, we need to accept it.

~~~
Hermitian
I do agree that risk is essential and ought to be accepted. After all, I think
I am more defined by my failures than anything else. But that deviates from
the main discussion.

I think the main discussion revolves around healthcare, or the lack of
healthcare for start-ups. It is one thing to take risk yourself, but it is
another to jeopardize your family's health services. I think that's the main
arguments.

------
tlianza
I think it's a fair point.

But - what problem are we solving? Do we think there are too few
entrepreneurs, and this will help create more? How many is enough, and how
much should we spend to create them?

The problem Stewart seems to be solving is that he'd prefer to remove
ammunition from his opponents' argument, which isn't an actual problem.

------
rglover
I started my own business right out of school. As a result, I better be damn
successful considering I have a lot of student loan debt to mop up. I have
wondered, why not offer advantages in these situations to people who start
businesses (say a window of ~6-12 months after graduation)? Either some sort
of tax break or little to no interest rate on my debt would be handy.

Another big one is health insurance. I've been swimming in open waters without
insurance for about a year now. The only plans that I can get are abysmal with
5k plus deductibles (please direct me to a better deal if I'm being naive and
something exists).

Even though I've taken the leap to build a business ahead of my peers, I'm
getting the crap end of the stick.

Does seem a bit unbalanced.

------
elviejo
It's interesting when I lived in the US it was surprising how many of my
coworkers on their early twenties were averse to risk... they wouldn't start a
new business venture and their reasons were: \- I have student loans \- I need
health insurance \- I need to build a foundation so that my kids can go to
college. \- After the economic crisis, it isn't worth it....

But living in a contry were: \- You don't have student debt \- Your health
services are warranted \- Your kids can go to college and even great colleges
for free...

Makes being an Entrepreneur SO much easy... that you wouldn't believe.

~~~
rglover
What country are you located in?

------
dmix
We'll the USA already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Maybe
if they were paying less in taxes, startups would have more money for health
insurance for their employees?

All entrepreneurs know that they can get better employee retention with health
care policy. If companies could afford it, then would there not be a higher
incentive to provide it?

That being said, I believe national health insurance is a good idea. Assuming
government spending is significantly restricted in other areas.

~~~
heyjonboy
Startups don't forgo health insurance because it's expensive, they forgo it
because purchasing health insurance is a gigantic, time-consuming pain in the
ass.

~~~
tomkinstinch
To be fair, it is damn expensive.

The BLS lists benefits as roughly 30% of total compensation[1]. Much of that
goes to healthcare.

So for a developer earning $100k in total compensation (say $70k salary, $30k
benefits), healthcare costs for that one employee might be $25k+. Providing a
_good_ policy for employees (and their families) is expensive. Worth it to
care for the team, but still expensive.

To the people skipping coverage in the US: it's stupid and not worth the risk.
You may be healthy, but you cannot control everything that impacts your
health. Infectous disease happens. Car crashes happen. Skipping coverage is
playing Russian roulette.

That said, I'm young and am fortunate to still be covered under the policy of
my parents. Perhaps the college years and shortly after are best for trying a
startup--while family coverage is still in effect. Then, or after you're
married to someone and are under his or her policy.

1\. <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/eci.pdf>

------
superdude
I would love to quit my current day job and work on my business full time if I
could be guaranteed health insurance. When I graduated, more than anything I
wanted a job with good health care. I could not risk joining a company that
would drop me or not cover me if I got some major health problem. So I got a
job with not the highest income but a very low likelihood of losing health
insurance...state government.

------
3143
Humans are complacent and humans are risk-averse. Increasing reward and
decreasing risk play to different aspects of human nature.

~~~
Renaud
True but that doesn't mean there is no place for those who just want to build
a small business without having to sacrifice their personal life to it.
Decreasing risk is also beneficial to society at large if a larger portion of
people are allowed to build businesses that provide jobs.

There is also the thought that lowering the personal risk to you and your
family allows you to take more chances with your business ideas and become
more innovative.

------
margaux
FYI if you live in San Francisco and make less than 54k a year you can get
Healthy San Francisco (<http://www.healthysanfrancisco.org/>). It can be free
depending on how much you're making. When I had a startup I broke my arm and
had to get surgery, it was only $100 bucks.

------
martythemaniak
The funny thing is, you can lower entrepreneurial risk _without_ lowering the
rewards, at least in this case.

The US is by far the most wasteful healthcare spender in the world, with vast
amounts of money producing very mediocre outcomes. But as we saw, the
political will is barely there, perhaps in another decade or two.

~~~
josephlord
> The US is by far the most wasteful healthcare spender in the world, with
> vast amounts of money producing very mediocre outcomes.

I'm a proponent of free/social healthcare but do those results stack up if you
look at where the spending goes? What I mean is do 40% spend 80% of that money
and get the best healthcare in the world and the 20% spent on the other 60% of
the people buy poor enough healthcare to bring the stats down?

I also get the impression that doctor's salaries are high and that might need
to be factored in to the cost comparison (e.g. do the healthcare spend
comparison in units of doctor's salary.

US doctor's salaries may be necessary incentive to get them to take on US
scale student debts for the duration of the medical degree, I'm not saying
that they are necessarily greedy but that unless doctors can be cheaper it may
not be possible to spend the same and get equal medical outcomes as other
countries.

It might take more than political will, outcomes may decline for the best off
and doctor's pay may have to fall for the same spend to get world class
results for the same money. I would still be a proponent of such a system if
all people could be treated humanely, not bankrupted for injury/illness even
for some reduction in quality of care for the currently well covered.

*All numbers are examples. Lawsuit costs are also often cited as a reason for the high overall costs so that may be fixable to some extent although other forms of regulation and safety net's for victims may be required.

------
tristan_juricek
Better social nets probably would create much higher wages as employees think
"screw this I'm gonna at least try it on my own", so companies have to up the
ante.

But I don't see more entrepreneurs turning into economic growth. That takes a
specific, rare entrepreneur that focuses on building growth, rather than
replacing a paycheck.

On the flip side, I don't see less taxes becoming economic growth either.
Taxes have to be pretty damn high to change your operations. The amounts
usually talked about are not going to cause a company to say "hey let's build
a new product".

The question should be "what's preventing companies from growing" instead of
this class warfare framework. In the US, I see big companies being limited
from growth by their own C-level executives' eye on their stock take - which
makes no sense until you realize the amount of money they can gain from short
term manipulation. But I see more of a problem due to bad skill sets - too
many people have the wrong set of skills. A retail store clerk is not going to
help anyone grow these days.

------
elchief
for the Canucks:

[http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/shows/thedailyshow?videoPacka...](http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/shows/thedailyshow?videoPackage=123198)

------
skylan_q
who is going to provide this safety net?

------
goggles99
The risks that exist today "weed out" failures before they ever exist
(failures are very expensive/bad for the economy). Most people realize that
they do not have a good enough concept, enough time/dedication/work ethic lack
a high level of life/business/leadership/social skills/self confidence.I could
go on and on here.

If people have little/no risk to follow a venture, we will see a lot more
people quitting their 9-5s and starting garbage businesses.

HMM - This sounds a lot like people getting home mortgages who have no
business getting them... I know that John was a big fan of the affordable
housing act as well.

Why does John Stewart stop there? why not lower entrepreneurial risk even more
and guarantee that if someones startup business fails that they get money to
live on from the govt for the next 18 months? Oh wait we already have that
(unemployment)

How about I become a full time entrepreneur then? I could probably make more
money per year starting failed business after failed business. I have money to
live on and free health care so why not? This sounds great for the economy.
This Stewart guy is sure a genius!!!

