Facile. People in the professional class don't tend to move "en masse". Residency is sticky for reasons beyond health insurance. Health care clearly is a factor retarding professionals from moving into entrepeneurship; if I saw it repeatedly at my very small company, think how much larger the issue must be nationally.

So startups/entrepreneurs don't move to the valley in order to increase their odds of success? I agree that many paycheck seeking professionals might not do so, but that's a rather different question.

Health care clearly is a factor...

I wasn't disputing that it is a factor. I was disputing the idea that it is a larger factor than access to capital or talent. Look, we hear about people moving to the valley all the time. People move to NY as well, though it's less common. Are all of these entrepreneurs "insane" (to borrow sachinag's language) for chasing capital/talent rather than Romneycare?

First, no: the entire "entrepreneurial class", whatever that may be, has not moved en masse to the valley. If you think the entire population of startup entrepreneurs that is seriously committed to tech has moved there, or at least enough of them to support your argument, then what are we talking about? You don't believe there's a latent vein of entrepreneurship that needs to be tapped anyways.

Second: yes. Most of the people who are moving to NYC and SFBA are irrational. Most of their companies fail. Everybody knows that going in. To the extent that they move entirely in support of their startups, they are crazy. (The fact is, most of the people moving aren't doing so entirely for their startup; they want to live there.)

Third, I doubt most entrepreneurs even know about "Romneycare". I'm only peripherally familiar with its specifics, and, as you can probably tell, health care is one of my issues.