It would be more interesting to look at more socialist countries, where benefits are provided more by the government instead of the employer. For example, France has experimented implementing 35 hour work weeks by giving extra days off in the month to white collar workers.
No, that's part of how the employer-centric market got started; its now tied to employers for a number of other reasons, including cultural expectations, and the fact that employers as large purchasers can get better prices per covered individuals than individual purchasers, meaning that even without a tax advantage, an employer can provide greater value to employees by providing them a group plan than providing them money with which they can then by an individual plan.
Would you not agree that treating all citizens equally, and giving them the freedom to choose how and where they get their healthcare would be an improvement on the current system?
Because large companies have a hugely skewed amount of political power due to campaign finance and lobbying and while I don't think they (large corps) engineered the current system purposefully, I do believe they recognize that it is beneficial for them to maintain it as it helps to keep the wage slaves in line.
Would you not agree that treating all citizens equally, and giving them the freedom to choose how and where they get their healthcare would be an improvement on the current system?
Of course. Economists all over the spectrum agree that either individual insurance should be tax-deductible or employer-provided insurance should be taxed. But it will never happen, because politics. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-poli...
If you mean why not excluded premiums from taxation for all health insurance (with the same limits applied to the pre-tax status of employer-paid health insurance premiums), that's probably a good idea.
(Of course, a substantial number of individual purchasers get better tax treatment as individual purchasers through the ACA exchanges by way of the tax credit for premiums.)
> Would you not agree that treating all citizens equally, and giving them the freedom to choose how and where they get their healthcare would be an improvement on the current system?
I'd agree that not tax-favoring employer-paid premiums over individually-paid premiums would be an improvement over the current system. If you have problems with other distinctions that exist in the status quo, I'd prefer to discuss them specifically rather than generally.
Simplistically: people who are more likely to suffer an illness (e.g., people with pre-existing conditions) will buy more insurance, and people who think they'll be healthy (e.g., younger people) will buy less. This drives up the amount of payments per insured, which drives up price, which further drives healthy people not to insure.
That's why you want health insurance purchase to be independent of risk of illness, which is (at least somewhat) what the employer-provided insurance does.
This is probably also the main reason state-provided health insurance might be a good idea.
Banerjee's and Duflo's 'Poor Economics' gives you a more detailed and nuanced explanation pp. 147-151. Great reading throughout.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142863.The_Social_Transfo...
Tl;dr: adverse selection is one of many reasons we are where we are.