There are tax breaks to providing health insurance through your employer, so companies are incentivized to compensate you with health insurance instead of more cash.
Coming up with a better way is trivial, yes, but getting it past the entrenched interests of one of the largest sectors of the economy (Healthcare) is ridiculously hard.
Yes, I know this. The solution is to either repeal those tax breaks or provide the same ones to individuals, to put all purchasers on the same playing field. Can't possible be more dislocating than the health care reform bill itself.