[seanmcdirmid]

Group plans distort the risk pool and are disallowed in countries like Switzerland that require health insurance. The major problem with the ACA is that they didn’t eliminate employer group plans, leading to an apartheid like situation where those higher income people having a discounted rate because the group pool they are in is much safer than the pool poorer people on the individual market are put into.

What is worse is that poorer people in the individual market can’t even get a tax break for buying health insurance (not until it becomes 10 percent of their income and they decide to itemize). In contrast, employers buy health insurance for their employees tax free. This literally screws poor people in service jobs by making them actually pay much more for health insurance (even including what the employer would pay).