In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by johnohara on Sunday January 30, 2011 @01:20PM (#2158660)

I don't know what constitutes "basic welfare" in Norway, but were the U.S. Dept. of Commerce to reimburse the health care premiums of anyone starting a new business, up to 100 weeks, I believe you would see a marked increase in the creation of new businesses in this country.

If anything, it would grease the rails to becoming "ramen profitable."

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by derleth on Sunday January 30, 2011 @07:21PM (#2159686)

> but were the U.S. Dept. of Commerce to reimburse the health care premiums of anyone starting a new business, up to 100 weeks, I believe you would see a marked increase in the creation of new businesses in this country.

You'd have to word the bill very stringently to ensure that the new businesses weren't just new parts of an existing business shuffling employees around to take advantage of all the money now sitting on the table.

For example, $BIGCO all of a sudden becomes the angel investor for a half-dozen startups full of ex-$BIGCO employees who are somehow still working on pre-existing $BIGCO products and understand that $BIGCO will ensure their paychecks as long as they do the kind of work they did while they were still at $BIGCO. The only difference is that the government is paying for the healthcare of those (ex-)$BIGCO employees, allowing the $BIGCO CEO to make 300% more this quarter.

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by borism on Sunday January 30, 2011 @02:21PM (#2158855)

wow, what an irresponsible proposal. corporations already have free speech, now they need to get government paid healthcare also? why should US taxpayers reimburse those entrepreneur's health care costs if most of them will fail to produce any jobs at all? looks like a great way to create even more moral hazard in US companies.

health care of work force should be shared between employers and society as a whole, not offloaded back and forth from one to the other.

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by michael_dorfman on Sunday January 30, 2011 @02:29PM (#2158882)

The Norwegian solution-- actually, come to think of it, the rest-of-the-world-outside-the-US solution-- is to break the linkage between health care and employment altogether, thus eliminating the moral hazard, and guaranteeing adequate health care for all.

In terms of the present discussion, it is easier for entrepreneurs to commit to a start-up if there is no fear of losing health-care coverage. That's a big win, if you ask me.

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by orangecat on Sunday January 30, 2011 @04:25PM (#2159224)

break the linkage between health care and employment altogether

Policy wonks on the left and right have been shouting this from the rooftops for decades, but to no effect. The problem is that any incremental change in that direction is instantly demagogued as "taking away your existing coverage".

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by natnat on Sunday January 30, 2011 @02:50PM (#2158943)

You're conflating small companies with a few employees and revenues in the thousands to millions with massive quasi-governmental institutions with profits in the billions. The first group doesn't have access to inexpensive healthcare (because their risk pools are small and they don't have much negotiating power), they don't have access to lobbyists to write laws for them, and they don't have access to armies of lawyers that can twist the meaning of laws already on the books.

The "free speech" issue really only applies to companies that have the resources to influence the government to begin with. A startup that has five employees and is only ramen profitable isn't going to hire a lobbyist.

On the other hand, I do think you're sort of right. If a benefit like this were passed, a lot of unemployed people would suddenly become "entrepreneurs" to get free healthcare. Large companies would find ways to spin off into thousands of "new" shell companies and transfer their employees there to get free healthcare as well.

Of course, the way the healthcare system exists now is basically that the government subsidizes entrenched players with tax incentives and allows employment to become essentially indentured servitude because the risk of losing healthcare while switching jobs is just way too high.

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Re:In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism by borism on Sunday January 30, 2011 @02:58PM (#2158965)

The first group doesn't have access to inexpensive healthcare (because their risk pools are small and they don't have much negotiating power), they don't have access to lobbyists to write laws for them, and they don't have access to armies of lawyers that can twist the meaning of laws already on the books.

see, you identified a handful of problems that are worth solving, not postponing them by giving out "reimbursements".

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