Besides being a godless secular progressive out to destroy all that is good in America, I am also a long-long-time Japanese animation (aka "anime") fan, who has lived in several states while attaining post-graduate technical degrees and working several scientific software algorithm jobs. As such I have made a number of friends in these various communities, who are now scattered all over the country...
I wanted to share this personal story from one of my several anime-fan friends in another state, who related earlier today how the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") has had a demonstrable positive effect on his ability to grow his small anime merchandise business, in exactly the manner that was so roundly mocked by our "free-market" loving corporatist punditocracy.
Below the fleur-de-Kos, I have [redacted] personal info to protect the innocent and to prevent the possibility of any right-wing lurkers on this site from posting his or his business' name on WorldNetDaily or somesuch, insisting "Hey this shop may have that Attack on Titan figure you want but its owner supports Obama so BOYCOTT!"
Also too, this brings to at least 4 the number of similar small-business/freelancer friends of mine with similar stories...
[My Wife] has recently put in her 2 weeks at the law office she works at. Her last day will be next Friday (unfortunately, not in enough time to have [her] be able to come out to [anime convention] with me, but she'll be working on getting things ready for the 2 cons after that). After that she will be joining me working full-time at [our anime small business]. We have reached the point where I cannot get all of the necessary work done by myself (without resorting to 14 hour days every day, 7 days a week, which would make me an absolute wreck. I know, I already tried with [my previous job]) and there is only so much she can do while working full-time elsewhere. Hiring someone else is out of the question. But with her having no cases at the moment, the economy seems to finally be picking up real steam (if all the help wanted signs are any indication), we have paid off almost all of our personal debts from the last time we took a big leap, the ACA has made it easy to get affordable health insurance, and our websites seem to be giving us more and more business, now is the time.
It's a bit scary. We're not actually to the point where we can be truly self-sufficient, but we can't get there without two of us working on it full time. So we'll hit the ground running and have the wind of 3 conventions in a row at our backs, plus an almost full schedule set up for the rest of the year. Still, we're going to be flying without a net here, folks. Wish us luck!
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P.S. (After I inquired whether it would be OK to share this story with personal info redacted, my friend added the following)
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... I'll add to that. She checked into the coverage we could get and, well, to put it simply (very simply), we can get about the same coverage as we were getting from a small law office (that dealt in insurance defense, no less) for much less money and much better insurance (no deductibles) for about $40 a month more than we are currently paying.