Startups will be out of reach of many in the US until we have a much more robust baseline of public services. First and foremost being health insurance of course.

I would love to start the kind of lifestyle (or "non-scaling" as you put it) business, but right now it's a complete non-starter for me because getting a health insurance policy for my entire family would be comically expensive.

It's even been harder for me interviewing with smaller startups because compared to single people, my insurance premiums are bonkers.