I know plenty of people who are sweating health-care coverage. None of them are poor kids. And they don’t work at Wal-Mart.

The people I know who are worried sick about coverage work for themselves

While the French just held an election in which one of the central issues was their anemic rate of self-employment, America acts as if all is well when in fact we’re one of the only developed countries with a rate of self-employment even lower than France’s. While surveys show that Americans are nearly twice as entrepreneurial as Europeans, we’re only half as likely to actually become self-employed.

What is holding Americans back? In two words: health care.

In other developed countries, where self-employment rates tend to be higher, taking the leap to working for yourself doesn’t affect your health care coverage or your family’s

we may end up achieving universal coverage without unleashing the talented and entrepreneurial.

Health-insurance payments will continue to act as an “ambition tax.”