It goes back to WWII when we had a strange price controls on labor. Health insurance was a way for employers to provide employ compensation circumventing that.

It goes back to WWII when we had a strange price controls on labor. Health insurance was a way for employers to provide employ compensation circumventing that. Originally it was quite manageable, but as with any system where neither the consumer nor the producer of the good/service has any incentive to keep down costs, it spiraled out of control. Also, president Richard Nixon effectively linked national health care with socialism as part of Cold War propaganda. (That said, he did offer comprehensive health reform too that in a number of ways was more dramatic than we achieved under president Obama, but the congress killed it.)