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It's not really tied to employers. There's no law stopping you from purchasing it yourself. The government just gives a tax break to companies who give it as a

It's not really tied to employers. There's no law stopping you from purchasing it yourself. The government just gives a tax break to companies who give it as a benefit. So they hugely incentivize it.

pmiller2 6y ago
You seem to be being deliberately obtuse. Yes, you could literally go buy the exact same amount of coverage as an individual as you’d get from an employer-sponsored group plan. But, since even employer-sponsored plans are frequently quite expensive, especially if you have children, that effectively prevents most people from doin so.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  You actually can't really do that since workplace health insurance plans actually cover some of the costs that insurance bills. Like, your work literally pays a bill. This isn't something that you can replicate.
  - genocidicbunny 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure given enough money, you can replicate it, but that's also exactly the problem -- given enough money. More and more these days it seems there's no amount that's enough.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    You're actually agreeing with me, I think. I said you can buy the exact same amount of coverage as the workplace plan, but the price will be so high as to be prohibitive.
- 1auralynn 6y ago
  As someone who has been buying my own health insurance for 15 years, you absolutely cannot buy the same exact coverage as an employer. They have MUCH better plans than what are available to individuals (in the three states I've lived in, anyway).
robbyt 6y ago
As someone who buys their own insurance, I have to say there are so many problems with the process. You make it sound like it's as simple as ordering a pizza... Firstly, the major insurance companies don't want to talk to you, so you need to buy through a broker. The broker is suppose to help you pick the plan that's right for you, but realistically they will email you a few PDFs with 5-7 plans that are all extremely similar, full of jargon, and difficult to understand. Find a better broker? Hah, good luck... So after you become an expert on insurance jargon, and ask your broker lots of question, you're now ready to start paying. For small plans with fewer than 5 people, get ready to pay anywhere from $700-1k per month for the most basic high deductible plan. Then after about a year, you'll get an email and phone call from your broker because your plan is no longer available. So you need to pick a new one, that has slightly different features and costs $20-100 additional per-year. The American health insurance is a parasite.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > You make it sound like it's as simple as ordering a pizza... It is as simple as going to healthcare.gov You don’t need a broker and it takes 15 minutes at most. It’s just as expensive as any employer sponsored insurance, except for a handful of self funded plans from white collar companies which might be able to offer cheaper insurance since the employees skew young and higher socioeconomic class.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    This is completely false. Insurance is far cheaper for large companies since the risk is being spread amongst a very large pool of individuals.
    - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
      The entire country isn’t a large pool of individuals?
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      The pool of lives of a whole state is large enough. Where some large companies benefit is having younger workers who are in a higher socioeconomic class, which usually means healthier and therefore less expensive. Checkout code DD of box 12 on your W-2 and compare to the same metal level plan for your state here: https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/average-marketplace-premiums-by-metal-tier/ https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/average-ma... I’ve compared it with a few different people working in Fortune 100 companies and it’s almost the same.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> There's no law stopping you from purchasing it yourself. First of all, get that autism checked out. Second, for HN readers unaware of what happened with Obamacare (ACA.) Individual policies used to be available in the $200/month range, which even blue and pink collar freelance jobs could afford (with no pre-existing conditions, of course.) ACA required several enhancements that bumped that up to $500+/month (with no pre-existing conditions, of course.). In the USA, that's rent in a flyover state. See the problem? Also, a lot of insurers just stopped offering insurance except in their home state.

It's not really tied to employers. There's no law stopping you from purchasing it yourself. The government just gives a tax break to companies who give it as a benefit. So they hugely incentivize it.

pmiller2 6y ago

You seem to be being deliberately obtuse. Yes, you could literally go buy the exact same amount of coverage as an individual as you’d get from an employer-sponsored group plan. But, since even employer-sponsored plans are frequently quite expensive, especially if you have children, that effectively prevents most people from doin so.

aaomidi 6y ago
You actually can't really do that since workplace health insurance plans actually cover some of the costs that insurance bills. Like, your work literally pays a bill. This isn't something that you can replicate.
- genocidicbunny 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure given enough money, you can replicate it, but that's also exactly the problem -- given enough money. More and more these days it seems there's no amount that's enough.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  You're actually agreeing with me, I think. I said you can buy the exact same amount of coverage as the workplace plan, but the price will be so high as to be prohibitive.
1auralynn 6y ago
As someone who has been buying my own health insurance for 15 years, you absolutely cannot buy the same exact coverage as an employer. They have MUCH better plans than what are available to individuals (in the three states I've lived in, anyway).

robbyt 6y ago

As someone who buys their own insurance, I have to say there are so many problems with the process. You make it sound like it's as simple as ordering a pizza... Firstly, the major insurance companies don't want to talk to you, so you need to buy through a broker. The broker is suppose to help you pick the plan that's right for you, but realistically they will email you a few PDFs with 5-7 plans that are all extremely similar, full of jargon, and difficult to understand. Find a better broker? Hah, good luck... So after you become an expert on insurance jargon, and ask your broker lots of question, you're now ready to start paying. For small plans with fewer than 5 people, get ready to pay anywhere from $700-1k per month for the most basic high deductible plan. Then after about a year, you'll get an email and phone call from your broker because your plan is no longer available. So you need to pick a new one, that has slightly different features and costs $20-100 additional per-year. The American health insurance is a parasite.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> You make it sound like it's as simple as ordering a pizza... It is as simple as going to healthcare.gov You don’t need a broker and it takes 15 minutes at most. It’s just as expensive as any employer sponsored insurance, except for a handful of self funded plans from white collar companies which might be able to offer cheaper insurance since the employees skew young and higher socioeconomic class.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  This is completely false. Insurance is far cheaper for large companies since the risk is being spread amongst a very large pool of individuals.
  - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
    The entire country isn’t a large pool of individuals?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The pool of lives of a whole state is large enough. Where some large companies benefit is having younger workers who are in a higher socioeconomic class, which usually means healthier and therefore less expensive. Checkout code DD of box 12 on your W-2 and compare to the same metal level plan for your state here: https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/average-marketplace-premiums-by-metal-tier/ https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/average-ma... I’ve compared it with a few different people working in Fortune 100 companies and it’s almost the same.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> There's no law stopping you from purchasing it yourself. First of all, get that autism checked out. Second, for HN readers unaware of what happened with Obamacare (ACA.) Individual policies used to be available in the $200/month range, which even blue and pink collar freelance jobs could afford (with no pre-existing conditions, of course.) ACA required several enhancements that bumped that up to $500+/month (with no pre-existing conditions, of course.). In the USA, that's rent in a flyover state. See the problem? Also, a lot of insurers just stopped offering insurance except in their home state.