Via Paul Krugman and Reed Abelson, here’s a chart from the National Institute for Health Care Reform. Over the past decade, the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance has dropped from about 70% down to nearly 50%. Note that this is for the non-elderly only, so it’s not due to the aging of society or the growth of Medicare. This is working-age people only. As Krugman says, our weird employer-based health insurance scheme is “coming apart at the seams.”
Most Americans simply have no clue how bizarre it is that we rely on employers to provide health insurance for most people. We’ve all grown up in this sytem, so it seems completely normal. But it’s not. It happened through a weird combination of historical accidents, and it makes no sense. Why should an airplane manufacturer also be in the healthcare business? Why should you lose your health insurance if you get laid off? Why should your choice of doctor be limited by your employer’s choice of insurance carrier? (And why should it change whenever your employer decides to change carriers?) Why should your boss be allowed to dock your paycheck if you don’t get the medical “counseling” he deems necessary? (Yes, this is real. And it’s rapidly making its way to a corporation near you.)
It. Makes. No. Sense. And dozens of countries around the world have shown that there are better, less expensive, more universal ways of providing medical care. It is truly a mystery that we still put up with the archaic, Rube Goldberg mess that passes for health insurance in this country. If the red trendline I added to the NIHCR chart turns out to be accurate, maybe we won’t for too much longer.
