Another axis to look at is the US over time (which also has less confounding with other differences across cultures). Looking at the graphs in the article, it appears Obamacare may have stopped the decline in self-employed workers. And since Obamacare started, the number of (likely) business applications increased steadily, doubling over 10 years. Unfortunately that graph doesn't go back in time far enough to determine if that's a deviation from a previous trend or not (it looks like it was increasing at a similar rate just before), but it's at least consistent with Obamacare helping slightly.

What's more striking is the 50% jump in business applications around the time of covid. Maybe that's in part due to stimulus?