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How Today’s Supreme Court Decision Will Help Unleash American Innovation

Upholding Obamacare means more for the growing ranks of independent innovators than it does for any political party.

Last year, I wrote a piece entitled How the U.S. Health Insurance Boondoggle Stifles Innovation, about how America’s demonstrably inefficient health care system, coupled with the dependence of most independent workers and entrepreneurs on a spouse for health insurance, threatens America’s competitiveness.

Protesters outside the US Supreme Court during oral arguments over the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Photo: Paul Smith)

Tech startup founders who have it all—a great idea, a pile of cash, and enthusiasm to burn—are still missing one thing. The ability to provide basic health insurance to themselves and their dependents. It’s a powerful disincentive to creating jobs in an economy that desperately needs them, and forces innovators who would otherwise strike out on their own to continue sharecropping for someone else.

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Today the Supreme Court upheld the Congress’s attempt to address this issue by creating, among other things, a mechanism that allows individuals to buy health insurance for themselves and their families at something other than the extortionate rates they’re subject to now.

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As Andy Baio, former CTO of Kickstarter, and founder of Upcoming.org put it, “Today’s ruling is life-changing news for indie artists and makers — especially those with families. (Like me.)”

It’s not the first time the US Government has recognized the need to create a mandatory health insurance program, but what’s significant is that this decision allows for a little more long-term planning and risk-taking on the part of the very people who will continue to create jobs in the IT sector, one of the few that continues to grow.

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