You bring up a good point. As a kid in 1965 I broke my arm being a kid climbing a tree. My Dad was a Sr. Mgr at a family owned factory (we were not owner family). We had no insurance back then, nobody did. Dad paid the $400 to fix my arm ($3000 today) out of his pocket. Six weeks in a cast X-rays etc.
Medicare was just starting and covered my Grandma’s heart attack but was a nightmare for Mom and Dad from a paperwork perspective, but it got paid.
Interesting. At that time my farm family always bought and had Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance coverage for themselves, but didn’t provide it to their employees.
But I would have thought a factory would have had to provide coverage for their employees if unionized—and would have covered senior managers as well.