In a world that is increasingly dominated by automation, multiple part-time jobs, and job insecurity, having the major method of obtaining health insurance coverage be via one's employer is increasingly less viable.
Unfortunately, that's the solution that the US (pretty uniquely) has developed and is saddled with, and it's a solution that the ACA did very little about. The question is, at what point will there be sufficient social pressure in the electorate to change that?
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
New technology ups the need for universal healthcare
Experts debate whether robots will take all jobs, but they agree big changes lie ahead.
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It was a kludge back when it was instituted to evade government salary caps in WWII, and it has only gotten worse since then.
I think it will be years before there's enough social pressure. I don't know if most people are too distracted by the latest Kardiashian news that's always online or what but I get the impression that a lot of people don't realize the US is probably the only non-third-world country that doesn't have a healthcare system that's worth a crap.
I work as a freelance writer and once asked others in a forum what they did about healthcare. I'd say 90% of the responses were 'Oh, I don't have to worry about that. I'm in the UK/Canada/Australia."
+Marty Shaw I think that's the result of a blend of nationalist pride (USA! USA!) and fifty years of fear-mongering from the Right about "nationalized health care". I think it's noteworthy that the ACA, the only baby step the US has taken toward reforming the system, largely keeps the structure intact with a rearrangement of financial obligations for the various parties, and the real driver was less universal health coverage (which the ACA improves but does not solve) but eliminating the most egregious aspects of the previous for-profit model — care reimbursement caps, coverage loss, pre-existing condition restrictions.
Ironically, by addressing those aspects and leaving intact a system that is increasingly not reflective of American working culture, we may have enabled that system to stick around (with inevitable kludgy patches) for another generation.