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Comment by bcx | Hacker News Reader

I don't love the political tone of this article. But while on the topic of healthcare, did any of you guys have an amazing time getting healthcare for your companies?

We found it was quite a bit of work, especially multi-state. Talking to entrepreneurs in other countries, not having to deal with healthcare for employees really let them focus on their product and their company, and not how to insure a small growing team across state lines.

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Libertarians and socialists agree that having employers provide health insurance is a staggeringly idiotic system. Libertarians would replace it with individual policies, and socialists would replace it with single payer. I favor the former (with subsidies for people who can't afford it due to poverty or preexisting conditions), but either would be much better than what we have now.

Unfortunately the average voter wants both "free" healthcare, and doesn't want the government running it, so every employer ends up being an insurance broker as well.

Right now we have neither - not sure why we couldn't have both. "Single payer" with adjunct private policies for those who want more than what the basic system provides.

Obamacare is basically the system that you say you favor.

Obamacare increases the burden on employers, and generally prohibits high-deductible health insurance policies that are actually insurance (as opposed to comprehensive policies which cover minor and predictable expenses). It's probably still better than the status quo, but it means we lose the option of going with a plan that's actually good like Wyden-Bennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act).

We still have yet to see what comes of it in 2014. I'm not hopeful, but the foundations have been laid for much worse that produced reasonable results.

Source that obamacare = single payer system?

I'm not fully familiar with it but I've never heard it described that way.

it isn't without risk either. as a small company, your insurer can drop you at any time if you start to get too expensive. though this is wildly illegal, if you confront them about it, they know you're a small company with razor thin margins and even if you win a multi-year lawsuit with them, you'll need other insurance in the meantime. so, they say "yeah well we'll see you court", and leave you with 1.5 weeks to get a new insurance policy for your employees...

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