We in the U.S. have chosen to get our health insurance primarily through our employers.  But that proves to be a very complicated process. The rest of the world has chosen their government to provide for their healthcare through their tax dollars.

Employer Paid Healthcare is Complicated:

• If our employer is small he is likely unable to afford the going insurance rates. Therefore those employees are pretty much own their own.

• If our employer is a religious based institution they will likely exclude things that other might  be covered for.

• If our employer is having some financial problems they will likely drop our coverage. That would put us at a severe risk of being overwhelmed by even one significant medical event.

• Since our employer is just one of many he doesn’t have much influence on driving medical costs down that other countries do.

• Since our employer is burdened with this responsibility he has trouble competing against companies in other countries who don’t have that load. That, I am convinced, is one of the reasons companies choose to take their jobs off-shore; they will not have the burden of providing expensive insurance to their employees.

Employer paid Health care is complicated and burdensome to both the companies and their employees. When will we ever learn to take the lessons of others and make them our own? Healthcare should be a right to all not a privilege to some. Universal healthcare would accomplish that fact.  Despite the world rankings that show us pretty far down the list U.S. healthcare is pretty good for those that can afford.  The trouble is that fewer and fewer of us can afford it now days.  And if Obmamcare is repealed the insurers will go back to excluding the sick by their “pre-existing conditions” clause that they seem to love.