On Innovation & Health Insurance

This comment on the story about Google, Apple and other Silicon Valley companies collaborating on no-poaching agreements has bothered me for the last day:

This has nothing to do with slavery or compensation suppression. This has everything to do with the progress, innovation and continuity of the companies. Losing an exec, a PM, or Sr. Dev from a specific project can be detrimental to that project — implications reaching far beyond the project itself. This is a classic “slippery slope” scenario, where, if employees are allowed to jump ship every couple years (months, even!), then the innovation and progress of those companies begin to stagnate. Period.

There’s no shortage of people willing to trade away the freedoms of other people. The tone of this guy’s comment makes me think he’s probably a staunch Republican, but there are just as many self-proclaimed liberals eager to dump the 2nd Amendment or trim the 1st Amendment in the name of “tolerance”.



What kills me about this particular comment is that I imagine this guy would also argue that companies need lower taxes and less regulation in order to have the freedom & incentives necessary for innovation. But of course individuals couldn’t possibly need any kind of incentives and freedom either, could they? I mean, Joe Apple should just be happy to have a job. He couldn’t possibly do a better job if carrots like more pay, better benefits, etc. were dangled in front of him. Ugh.



I’m interested in what drives progress and innovation. It’s a fascinating topic. I was actually already thinking about it in terms of our national health care system. I think the fact that so many of us are tied to this horrible system of employer-provided insurance is a nationwide drain on creativity and innovation. How many talented and creative individuals are unwilling to strike out on their own because they don’t want to lose their health insurance? Oh, to be sure, there are still entrepreneurs and the ObamaCare provision allowing people to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 27 helps, but it doesn’t help enough. With the rising costs of health care, potential entrepreneurs aren’t just risking business failure anymore, they’re risking financial ruin or even serious health problems if they or their family get sick.



One of the main arguments against socialism is that you stifle innovation by reducing the potential rewards for greatness and you create a system where too many people can simply “coast” on the effort of others, but I don’t think anything is quite that simple. I think there are cases like this where a little bit of socialism could actually help innovation flourish in the country and enable people who don’t want to coast the ability to set their own course with more reasonable risk.

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