We learned another side of the story from our expe...

2007-12-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

We learned another side of the story from our experience in New Zealand with my husband's back country hiking accident. New Zealand has the Accident Compensation Corporation, which seems to be Worker's Comp writ large. Hurt in an accident, under any circumstances, and your medical costs are covered. Car wreck, on-the-job, skydiving-think no-fault medical coverage for accidents. By taking the medical costs out of the equation, the result seemed to be a lowering of liability insurance to affordable rates for small businesses. Only with the ACC, we figured, could a country of 4 million people develop their extreme sports tourism industry, which is mostly made up of mom-and-pop enterprises. In the U.S., a start-up would never be able to afford liability insurance for the bungee jumping invention. Maybe it could only be done in a country already set up with national health insurance. But it keeps the lawyering expenses out of the national aggregation of costs, a choice the kiwis seem happy with. We ended up paying about $US20 for 4 nights of hospitalization, surgery, aftercare and medications, and the quality of care was excellent.
I believe more entrepreneurs would create more jobs if we had national health insurance. People seem much more willing to risk their family finances than their family's health to go it alone. And it's nearly impossible for the starting entrepreneur to find reasonable health coverage, especially for a family. We all pay the costs of forgone innovation as a result.

Comments on y-intercept blog: Workers Comp

We learned another side of the story from our expe...