Government routinely mandates and subsidizes low‐quality health care while blocking high‐quality care. Whether it’s terrible health insurance, poor‐quality care, or lack of quality innovations, government is not the solution but the problem.
People don’t lose their auto or homeowner’s insurance just because they switch jobs, lose their job, lose a spouse to divorce or death, or retire. But they do lose their health insurance. If they’re sick when it happens, they end up with an uninsured and uninsurable preexisting condition.
Why does this keep happening? Cradle‐to‐grave private health insurance has been available for decades. Why do people keep enrolling in such low‐quality health insurance?
Because government mandates it. About 100 years ago, obscure federal bureaucrats ruled that if employers buy health insurance for employees, it is not subject to the income tax, but if the employer gives that money to the employees, it is. Taking the money and buying health insurance that stays with you between jobs therefore reduces your after‐tax income.