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No, the argument is, X is good, but incredibly expensive for individuals. X (interestingly) is cheap for employers. Therefore employers can provide this substantial benefit X to employees in a manner they would not be able to alone.


Additionally, without X, employer faces a decent chance of being forced to choose between firing a newly-disabled employee, or continuing to pay their salary even though they can't produce enough value to justify it. With X, you avoid being forced to choose between two bad outcomes.


I bring it up because there are downsides to coupling essential services to whoever happens to be your employer at the time. The upsides are mostly a consequence of the market adapting to decades-long tax policy. There's nothing special about employers, but I guess sometimes it's easier to reinforce a problem than to fix it.


Yes, I absolutely agree. I wish the US had a single payer healthcare system.

But that's not the reality we live in (yet, hopefully). So if these sorts of opportunities exist, presumably we should consider them.


Also, if the event X covers occurs, it would put the employer in an awful ethical position.




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