To understand why I was calling it progressive, I need to give some context to how I see health insurance in the US as broken. The current health care insuranc

To understand why I was calling it progressive, I need to give some context to how I see health insurance in the US as broken. The current health care insurance market is a lot of information asymmetry. I personally can not comparison shop for insurance. My employer is generally paying a portion or all of the insurance, so there is heavy incentive to take the insurance to get your best compensation. If I don't take it, my employer will not give me the difference that they are contributing. Using my employer to pay for insurance, it can be done pre-tax (generally, recent legislation may change that). The lack of choice and information asymmetry is what bothers me, and I applaud and expect this companies model to start becoming more common (hence progressive), but in the short term it would make sense to let the employee decide between a company plan and taking the money. Lastly, since this is a publishing shop, they may be used to dealing with more freelance employees/contractors which does typically include such a benefit.