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Comment by smacktoward | Hacker News Reader

You can see Gallup's historical polling results on this question here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx

Since 2000, the percentage of respondents who have said that providing healthcare coverage "is not the responsibility of the federal government" has fluctuated from a low in 2006 of 28% to a high in 2013 of 56%. (In their most recent survey, it's 42%.)

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I've always wondered why people seem to think it should be "the responsibility of your employer". As someone who didn't grow up in the US, who is now a US business owner, it seems totally insane but everyone just nods..

This is the crux of the problem. Sometime ago- the wise people in power decided to push the responsibility of medical coverage onto employers. Funny they chose that instead of housing or food- but thats what it is. Now everyone has to find a job that has health benefits- but employers are finding ways around it

That’s not what happened. The federal government capped wages during WWII, and in response the unions threatened to strike, which would have shut down the war effort. To mollify them, the health insurance that unions had negotiated as a fringe benefit from their employers was temporarily made tax-free (normally you pay taxes on the cash value of fringe benefits).

After the war, it was supposed to go back to normal — but people had gotten used to not paying taxes for their insurance benefits, and it became politically impossible to go back to the way things were pre-war.

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