The concept of employer-paid health insurance as a benefit of employment developed during the Second World War, when wages were frozed by executive order, so as to prevent a bidding war between employers fighting for the same pool of workers to put to work in war industries. Since the corporate managers were denied the right to offer higher wages as an incentive for badly needed workers, they turned to pensions, health and life insurance as non-wage incentives. Unions took advantage of this provision, and negotiated HUGE packages, to the degree that employers were forced to take over the whole cost of the insurance programs offered, and the arrangement was continued after the war emergency was over. Thus health benefits became tied to employment status, with the employee taking no responsibility whatsoever for protecting his own access to health services, a situation which was endorsed most heartily by the unions and their representatives in elective legislatures.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Take advantage of every one that comes up.
Health insurance should be between the insurance company and you, not your employer. The government has thrown the health care market out of whack via the tax code.
It appears that we agree.