It’s painful listening to conservatives suddenly defending a concept — your health insurance is tied to your job — that FDR came up with.
Those were the days when you worked the same (shitty) job your whole life. It’s now 2014.
Matt K. Lewis writes:
The irony, of course is that ObamaCare is essentially fixing a problem that liberal policies (wage controls and distortions in the tax system that coupled employment with health insurance) created in the first place. (…)
Just as I don’t want men and women to be servants of the state, putting them in thrall to their employer for the sake of health insurance isn’t my idea of a good society idea, either. Ideally, we would have a free-agent nation where more Americans are afforded the opportunity to pursue their dreams and exploit their God-given talents.
My guess is that at least some of the people who are now able to work less without losing their employer-sponsored health care will go on to do much bigger and better things than they would have by just continuing to grind out 40-plus hours a week in a job they didn’t like. Some, I suspect, will invent things and create jobs that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. (…)
This whole debate is more nuanced than either side would care to admit. On one hand, we have a system that is freeing people from having to work simply in order to obtain health insurance. On the other hand, we are creating a disincentive for people to better themselves. Conservative reformers hoping to replace ObamaCare would do well to try to enhance the former and diminish the latter. That means disconnecting health insurance from employment, creating a free-agent nation where people can own and manage their own health insurance, and fostering an environment where hard work pays off.
