For many years I often wondered why wealthy American capitalists (except for the ones in insurance, obviously) didn't actively promote socialized medicine that would free their companies from having to provide health insurance to their employees: it'd be better for their bottom line, wouldn't it? Healthier workforce, lower expenses per headcount, etc. I figured it must just be a generational thing from those who grew up during the Red Scare to distrust anything "socialized."

It's been in recent years, though, that I have come to see that it's still _very_ much in their interest to have employees who already have a job to feel _scared_ to leave it. I don't think this is an organized operation, there's no annual meeting of US company HR departments who scheme about it, I doubt it's something actively thought about by many people very often, but all the same the loss of corporate-provided insurance would do _so much_ to loosen the fears that keep people working for jobs that it would no doubt have a _large_ effect on the economy and every company. The biggest effect would be that it'd be extremely simple to leave a low-paying job to seek a higher wage if you have just enough saved up to cover rent and living expenses for the interim.

As such, it finally makes sense to me why so many of the wealthy choose not to lobby for socialized medicine or even to actively fund lobbying against it even if they're not involved in the insanely-powerful for-profit health industry themselves or to lobby in other countries to weaken/dismantle/destroy their existing systems (yes, I know that with an aging population costs of care are getting higher everywhere, but a lot of the funding issues with UK NHS and Canada Medicare are also political in origin): it weakens labor and wages more than they ever have to spend on insurance.