You should clarify what part of the problem is solved. Under individual 1099 wage treatment in the US, the healthcare cost shift is generally not in favor of t

You should clarify what part of the problem is solved. Under individual 1099 wage treatment in the US, the healthcare cost shift is generally not in favor of the employees in older cohorts. If you are claiming to use actual individual freelance-style contributors engaging with clients as 1099, then you should look at the pricing and coverage constraints of individual healthcare plans in the US for older employees. 1099 corp-to-corp is done all the time of course, but that simply shuffles around the pieces on the board. The cost only appears to get magicked away in most 1099-oriented arrangements because the vast majority of 1099 individuals I've worked alongside and gotten to know have compromised pretty extensively on their benefit plans, compared to most conventional big group-based benefit plans. In the US, volume discounts don't cover just price, but all sorts of other transaction factors that simply do not show up in economic statistics. There are some individuals out there who are comfortable doing 1099 work, while meeting or exceeding benefits plans of big groups, and I've done it myself in the past. It takes a lot of discernment, judgement, and work to navigate the thicket of options and constantly-changing regulatory landscape from many different jurisdictions. It's easy to wave the magic wand of the free market and say make everyone a free agent, but in reality it's not for everyone, and I would not promote it as a general policy for the general population. Ronald Coase's work on the economic effects of transaction costs at individual and firm level illuminates some rationales behind why encouraging individual 1099 transactions would not produce optimal results.