Comment by watertom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by watertom | Hacker News Reader

The biggest thing hurting startups is the fact that big companies provide health care. Having Businesses provide health care, IMHO, is the biggest issues facing job growth in the U.S.

Having been on the ground floor of 3 startups, the biggest issues wasn't salary it was health care, the only people that you can recruit are those young enough not to care, either because they are single or they don't have children. If you want to hire experienced employees the roadblock will be health care. I've lost more people than I can count due to health care issues.

Big businesses actually like to provide health care, they bitch and moan, but if they didn't want to provide it they would drop it. Big business controls the job market by providing health care, it limits employee's freedom to change jobs and start companies. Business provided health care also makes our products and services more expensive decreasing our ability to compete globally.

Which is part of a reasonable benefits package. So you're arguing that, in addition to underpaying base comp, they also want to bypass a competitive benefits package--but that may not be obvious to young people who don't think they need insurance.

I think the parent is trying to make the case that startups by nature can't provide competitive healthcare, which hurts the economy when small business can't attract top people.

It's much different than a 401k, free meals, foosball table, vacation policy, etc, in that once you experience a major health problem you are compromising your health or face prohibitive costs if you are on a mediocre healthcare plan.

Does it, though? That's like saying it hurts the economy because I can't afford a Ferrari.

They're trying to make that case. Healthcare plans (for the time being) are available outside of employers but are not inexpensive. If the company can't either provide a plan or pay employees enough to buy a plan on their own, they're simply providing inadequate compensation.

I've worked for smaller companies in the IT industry and salaries haven't been Google level but I've always had a decent benefits package, including healthcare.

I mean it is just inherently more expensive to provide good benefits per-employee if your headcount is lower.

I left at startup because of healthcare issues. Having healthcare tied to one's employment is terrible in so many ways for both the individual and the economy as a whole. Maybe one day someone will cut that chain...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com