Single payer government health care as an incentive to bold entrepreneurship

by Glen Wallace

From the perspective of what I like to call 'applied social political philosophy', I prefer to bypass the whole debate about whether health care is a privilege or a right that the state is obligated to provide.  Instead, I ask the question, is a society that provides universal health care coverage achieving an ideal compared to a society that doesn't?  Can that ideal be practically achieved using a reasonable level of human and material resources?  If the answer to those two questions is 'yes', then proceed with taking steps towards the state providing universal coverage.  If there isn't yet sufficient support from the constituents for such coverage, then proceed with arguments and facts to sway them otherwise.

Regarding any counter arguments about government coverage leading to complacency, I think the facts and reasons point in the opposite direction.  If memory serves me correctly, I believe I read a statistic that European nations are greatly outpacing the U.S. in rates of business startups.  And given that universal single payer coverage is much more common in Europe, it would stand to reason that that difference is a fundamental reason for Europe besting the U.S. in such bootstrapping.  That's because here in America, the worker is much too dependent on their employer for health care coverage and thus discouraged from even dipping their feet into the business startup waters.  

Compare the American worker with dreams of starting their own business but are wary of leaving their employer with its comfortable health insurance coverage with the Scandinavian worker who knows they and their family would be assured of health care coverage whether their business startup idea works or not.  Our system of private insurance, generally provided through employment, acts as a disincentive to bold entrepreneurship.  Conversely, a single payer universal coverage system, by limiting risk, would act as an incentive to the sorts of bold bootstrapping that built the United States business empire -- an empire that is now showing signs of flagging compared with the rest of the developed word that wisely provides universal healthcare coverage.