Health Care as Economic Stimulus?

I am not an expert on the sub­ject of Health Care Cov­er­age, nor will I pre­tend to be.   How­ever, a thought has been run­ning through my head for a week or two now, and I thought I would float it out for dis­cus­sion.   Could access to health care cov­er­age through some entity other than an employer have the poten­tial to stim­u­late the economy?

Nor­mally, I hear from one side how we are in des­per­ate need of a national health care plan and from the other side how the gov­ern­ment is inef­fi­cient and national health care would increase costs to all Amer­i­cans.   Both are right, and nei­ther has been able to fully solve the problem.  

Still, I can not recall ever hear­ing some­one make the argu­ment that hav­ing access to cov­er­age might stim­u­late the growth of small busi­ness.  Well, my thought goes like this. 

• How many would be small busi­ness own­ers and entre­prenueurs do not make the plunge to start their own busi­ness because of the fear of los­ing health care coverage? 
• How many small busi­nesses are crip­pled by the cost of healthcare?
• How might this dynamic change if some­one with a great idea could ensure their fam­ily inde­pen­dent of a com­pany in an afford­able man­ner.  (Yes, I know indi­vid­ual plans are avail­able, but they are extremely costly.) 
• If the bur­den of health care were taken off of busi­ness, what would the impact be?