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The entrepreneurial case for national healthcare

Matt Haughey

• 1 min read

From my post in October 2008 about my election issue wishlist:

Universal Healthcare. Everyone I know that freelances or works a day job and wishes they could quit and follow their dreams of launching a company complains about the lack of healthcare. Whenever I used to talk about freelancing at tech conferences, the first question was always about healthcare coverage. I've heard that in places like Berlin where you don't have to worry about where your healthcare is coming from or how much it costs, up to 35% of working age adults are freelancers. It may sound crazy and anti-capitalist to consider healthcare for all, but if we flipped a switch tomorrow and everyone had health coverage I swear a million small businesses would launch overnight. I know lots of people that keep a job just to get healthcare that are wasting their creative talents because they had a cancer scare or were born with a defect or otherwise are deemed uninsurable on their own.


I remembered this because I'm hearing about an ongoing debate about National Healthcare and seeing an economy growing in fits and starts but one that could use a shot in the arm. I still believe we are losing a great deal of innovation, we are living in a world without inventions, and we're stagnating in an economy that could benefit from entrepreneurial expansion. The global economy is constantly changing and though the US used to export things, we now just export ideas, and America could continue to lead with ideas and innovation if the business environment was a welcome place for new entrepreneurs wanting to jump in.

I still know scientists, programmers, designers, photographers, and musicians that hold jobs and dream of someday walking away to work on their real dreams, but the question of how on earth will they pay for healthcare (stories like this are abundant when you consider 50% of bankruptcies arise from healthcare bills) is a major hurdle.

I don't see how someone could be strongly pro-business and not see an upside to extending the already existing national healthcare for seniors down to age zero. How many more Googles, Facebooks, and Twitters are we missing with the way things are?