[Mountain_Skies]

Wasn't it the labor movement that tied many of these benefits to employers? Pretty sure at least employer paid (and now, semi-paid) health insurance was won due to organized labor demanding it. At the time it was likely the right thing to do but now it does seem to create an extra entanglement.

[pravda]

>Wasn't it the labor movement that tied many of these benefits to employers?

No, it was WWII that did it.

[malandrew]

It started during WWII due to government restrictions on what could be paid, but was extended to be an obligation under full-time employment via organized labor movement.

[heymijo]

Not just organized labor.

> This didn’t stop President Truman from considering and promoting a national health care system in 1945. This idea had a fair amount of public support, but business, in the form of the Chamber of Commerce, opposed it. So did the American Hospital Association and American Medical Association. Even many unions did, having spent so much political capital fighting for insurance benefits for their members. Confronted by such opposition from all sides, national health insurance failed — for not the first or last time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-th...

[astura]

Probably because group plans are/were strictly better and cheaper than individual plans (especially pre-ACA).