Isn't employer dependent healthcare basically slavery, blackmail or both ?
It's the same everywhere in the US. Colloquially called "collecting unemployment".
You get unemployment benefits. For a little while. In some places there may also be something like rent compensation, but generally unemployment benefits are supposed to be all-encompassing. (They are nowhere near enough to be all-encompassing.)
Once the unemployment benefits end, you better have a job.
My wife lost her job in the summer of 2020. We were incredibly lucky that the lockdowns meant extended unemployment benefits. They still lasted....I forget exactly, but I believe it was no more than about a year.
I'm not familiar with all of them, but here in "free, socialized healthcare" France, if you don't have a "mutuelle", which seems similar to "employer-dependant healthcare" in the US, you're going to have to pay out of pocket quite a lot of money. Maybe not as much as in the US (not familiar with that country), but very much not free. Think dental, glasses, needing to spend a night in a hospital for whatever reason (even public ones!), etc. On top of your salary being much lower.
Sure, you don't need an employer to have a mutuelle, you can pay for your own. But it's usually pricier and worse coverage.