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by d357r0y3r
2828 days ago
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Rarely discussed but yeah, that's how employee provided health insurance became a thing. It makes no more sense than company-provided housing or groceries or life insurance. You're already at risk of being let go by the employer at any time. Why tack on more risk by trusting the employer to take care of important insurance coverage? The answer in 1942 would have been, "don't subsidize employer-based health insurance." The answer in 1962 would be have been, "remove the subsidies and let God sort it out." The answer is 2018 is...well, kind of like replacing the engine mid-flight. An entire tumor-like system has grown around various market incentives and it can't just be 'removed' without putting the host at serious risk. It's kind of a shame it turned out this way because it's given insurance a bad name, unfairly IMO. Insurance is actually something that the market handles reasonably well and it's a product worth buying depending on the situation. Catastrophic insurance can be (and, to some degree, is) fairly priced. There are many health-related services that make no sense to be covered by insurance, though. Doctor visits, routine procedures, pregnancy - it doesn't make sense to insure oneself against any of those events. Rather, they should either be paid for out of pocket or a single payer system if you like. |
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Sure it can; the ACA marketplaces were the first step. If they hadn't been systematically undermined, the next step after they were established and stable would be shifting tax incentives to avoid favouring employer-based insurance, and the final step would be removing employer mandates and maintaining the individual mandate.
The problem is that it's not a cancer, it's an active parasite that protects itself against the host.