Insurance drives your job and marriage choices

August 7th, 2008 | by Brian Schwartz |

For those who support employer-sponsored insurance and forcing employers to do it, e.g., via Colorado Ballot Initiative 92 (”Employer Responsibility for Health Insurance”), consider this: employer-sponsored insurance interferes with what jobs we choose and our choice to get married.  These are rather significant parts of our lives, which we should choose for reasons other than medical insurance.

 According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation published in April:

  • Almost one in five people “decided to stay in one job, rather than take another, mainly because the job you held at the time offered better health care benefits.” 
  • About 12% “Decided to take a different job, rather than stay at a job, mainly because the new job offered better health care benefits.” 
  • One in twenty “decided to get married, mainly to have access to your spouse’s health care benefits.”

The first two are an example of insurance job lock, and is yet another compelling reason to eliminate the tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance.  Elimining this would also encourage more people to get individual plans, which would make them less likely to marry for insurance reasons.

(Via The Inclusionist.  Paul Hsieh and Lin Zinser also site the job lock here.)

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  • kmw
    My main concern about ending employer provided insurance is how difficult or affordable would it be for people with chronic health conditions to get coverage on their own if their employer decided to stop providing a health insurance benefit? Currently it's rather difficult and often prohibitively expensive for people with chronic health conditions to purchase their own health insurance independently. How do you think this would change if the tax break for employer provided insurance was removed?
  • Just so you're aware, the insurance companies (who greatly contribute to political campaigns) are currently on a quest to protect the employer paid model.

    Cost of acquisition of a policy for an employer model (20-500 at one time) vs. an individual model (1 at a time) is much better for them.

    Never mind that it's a bad model, keep the corporate welfare coming.

    The quickest, best solution to the health care crisis is just that. End the preferential treatment for employer provided insurance. Take away the tax break entirely and let it be treated like every other health care expense on a schedule A and watch the market reform happen.
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