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The #1 thing we need to do is make it illegal for your healthcare to be tied to your employment

Yes. Or at the very least, stop making it mandatory. Health insurance should work like literally everything else: your employer pays you money, and you use that money to buy it.

> Health insurance should work like literally everything else

Eh, everything else varies significantly by company. Tradesmen have to buy their own tools. FANG provides free lunches.

I've yet to see an argument for why a singular person is going to be able to do a better job making healthcare more efficient than a company that shells out millions of dollars for that line item. Like why doesn't HR drop the health insurer that just keeps lock-step increasing prices? And why doesn't that reason apply to an individual?

Lots of people without a lot of assets would gamble.

The current system exists because yours is even worse.

> I worked in healthcare start-ups for many years

I learned a while back that there are two industries you should never ever touch as a startup:

- Healthcare

- Education

Both systems are so broken (for different reasons) that it's a fool's errand.

> We can still have your employer provide a X% or $Y to an HSA account that the employee can buy health coverage wherever they like. (I'm not optimistic that this will ever happen politically)

Doesn't this already partly exist? My (US) employer offers an HDHP (high-deductible health plan) that comes with an HSA.

(It's not quite what you described, because you have to use the insurer that the company picked. I think you're describing something more like the Singaporean system with Medisave.)

I think the mechanic they're trying to speak to is that due to insurance being tied to employer, no insurance plan (besides Medicare/Medicaid) is truly motivated to ensure good health outcomes beyond a ~4 year horizon. You'll switch jobs and get a different plan.

FEHB plans would also have this incentive. I think at least historically Federal employees didn't switch employers as much (though job-hopping between agencies happens), but more importantly if you retire from the Federal government you keep your health insurance.

Yeah, what I'm suggesting is that your premiums are funded through your HSA, not just your deductible and medicines. Obviously, the max HSA funding amounts would have to change.

The main difference there is that with an HDHP your employer is still the one choosing the insurance provider, and the insurance provider views your employer as the customer. There's no risk that you as an individual will switch to another provider as long as the employer remains with this one.

Removing that layer of indirection would make it your own choice to pick a provider, and the provider is then incentivized, at least a little bit, to provide you with a good outcome or else you may freely switch to another provider.

There's also the component that, right now, you lose the discounted group rate insurance premium as soon as you lose or leave a particular job. Putting the purchasing power with the end consumer means that you can keep your provider at the same premiums even if you switch jobs. All that might change is your employer contribution.

Why make this so complicated when we can just have medicare for all? You're right that healthcare shouldn't be tied to your employment, but what you're proposing is something that only the rich + affluent can achieve independently.

All you're doing is playing musical chairs with different capitalists, just stop playing the game. A large part of the electorate wants to stop playing the game.

I think politically it is an easier sell than medicare for all or government only healthcare.

You need to do some actual canvassing and get out of your SV bubble, M4A polls at a consistent 60% support where both independents and democrats are at nearly 80% support.

What you're advocating is more corporate welfare that I don't see happening but it's the only playbook those with money seem to advocate for.

Weird.

No offense, but that is meaningless.

60% support abortion but he we are with no Roe. 70% support gay marriage but the small percentage in charge want to outlaw it.

It takes more than polling to become legislation. Weird indeed.