Because the quiet truth buried inside the American health system is simple:
The benefit was never really the company’s.
It was the worker’s money all along.
Addendum I
Why the System Could Work
The central idea behind this proposal is not to create a massive new federal program but to redirect an existing subsidy.
Employer-sponsored insurance receives large tax advantages. Because premiums are excluded from taxable income, both employers and employees avoid paying income and payroll taxes on those benefits.
Economists broadly agree that these costs ultimately come out of wages. When employers spend more on health insurance, workers tend to receive less in cash compensation.
Redirecting the subsidy toward individuals rather than employers would allow the ACA marketplace to expand into the primary insurance system for working-age Americans.
Medicare and Medicaid would remain unchanged, preserving coverage for seniors and low-income households while making insurance portable for everyone else.
Workers would keep their insurance when they change jobs. Entrepreneurs could start businesses without risking their family’s coverage. Freelancers and small companies would buy insurance through the same marketplace as everyone else.
The system would finally match the modern labor market.
Addendum II
The Numbers
Several major financial flows already exist inside the American health insurance system.
The tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance costs the federal government roughly $296 billion per year.⁵
The top one percent of American households—about 1.6 million tax filers—collectively earn roughly three trillion dollars annually.⁶
That scale matters because even small percentage adjustments to income at the very top generate significant revenue. Every single percentage point of income from the top one percent represents roughly $30 billion.
Because the income base is so large, relatively modest adjustments combined with redirecting the existing employer insurance subsidy could finance expanded marketplace subsidies for millions of Americans.
The proposal therefore relies primarily on reallocating existing spending rather than building entirely new programs.