What a Fear-Based Healthcare System Can Keep Locked Up

When I was 29, I left my job to start a company called Atayne. My goal was ambitious. Create a model for the apparel industry that didn't exploit people and the planet for profit. One fear loomed larger than all the others. It wasn't failure. It wasn't running out of money. It was losing my health insurance.

One bad diagnosis or one serious accident could have ruined me financially. That fear almost kept me from pursuing my dream.

I made the leap. But I've been thinking about how many people don't. According to a West Health-Gallup survey, one in six adult workers in the United States stays in a job they might otherwise leave because they're afraid of losing employer-sponsored coverage. Researchers call it "entrepreneurship lock." A Harvard Business School study found that when children's health insurance expanded, self-employment increased by 12%. RAND found that self-employment rates jump significantly when workers turn 65 and qualify for Medicare. People are waiting until 65 to follow their dreams.

I've been self-employed for almost 20 years. I've had to piece together my own approach. A health cost-sharing community for catastrophic coverage. A direct care provider who knows me as a whole person, not a collection of symptoms. His incentive is to keep me healthy, not to maximize billing. The tradeoff is I pay for everything out of pocket. It forces calculations no one should have to make about their own health.

I keep coming back to a question. How much love, creativity, and innovation never enters the world because fear-based systems keep people tethered to choices they wouldn't otherwise make? Those are costs that don't show up in any spending report.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org