[miki123211]

Be aware that in many single-payer systems, insurance is also tied to working (or unemployment / retirement / pensions).

In my opinion, this is actually the reason for why we have so little innovation in Europe.

Mandatory, single-payer insurance very significantly raises the cost to be self-employed / have a sole proprietorship, which you practically need to run any side project that you want to eventually make money from. This means that if you launch a startup, you either need it to be profitable on day one, or you're vasting significant amounts of your money, not just your time.

[tsimionescu]

> Be aware that in many single-payer systems, insurance is also tied to working (or unemployment / retirement / pensions).

This is true.

> This means that if you launch a startup, you either need it to be profitable on day one, or you're vasting significant amounts of your money, not just your time.

This is a false dichotomy. First of all, even ignoring health-care, you're still spending money on housing, food, electricity etc. If you're not employed and your startup is not profitable, you're paying money out of pocket to live.

Second of all, even in the USA, you are still going to pay for health insurance even if you are currently founding a startup. You could argue you are allowed to gamble that our health is good enough that you don't need health insurance for a few years, but that's just tossing coins. You could just as well not pay your taxes in the EU for a year or two, and gamble that the authorities will not catch on right away.

[xp84]

I don’t get it, why is a self-employed person paying so much more than others for single payer healthcare where you are? That sounds exactly like the USA where those not employed as a normal full-time employee pay the most for equivalent insurance, so people here definitely do stay at their regular jobs instead of quitting to found a startup. Insurance outside of those group plans is even more expensive than the already shocking normal cost, and of course normal full time employment (what we call W-2 jobs) usually provides a generous healthcare subsidy.

[miki123211]

Because healthcare is often paid per "working relationship", so if you work for a company and are doing something on the side, you have to pay twice, and the second fee comes out of your pocket.