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Would moving away from an ‘employer pays’ health insurance model make it easier for employees to switch jobs?

As an Australian, we have two types of health cover. ‘Medicare’ is offered to everyone, regardless of employment status, and covers most of the costs of a GP visit, any emergency hospital treatment, non emergency but essential surgery, and a whole host of other treatment. Secondly, you can pay for private health cover, which costs a lot more, but gets you quicker access to more specialists and offers a rebate on a broader range of elective surgeries. When I read about the US model, it seems that people tend to only have health cover through their employer, and so are stuck in a job unless they can move immediately to another. Would workers be better off if health care was not tied to a job?


As an Australian, we have two types of health cover. ‘Medicare’ is offered to everyone, regardless of employment status, and covers most of the costs of a GP visit, any emergency hospital treatment, non emergency but essential surgery, and a whole host of other treatment. Secondly, you can pay for private health cover, which costs a lot more, but gets you quicker access to more specialists and offers a rebate on a broader range of elective surgeries.

When I read about the US model, it seems that people tend to only have health cover through their employer, and so are stuck in a job unless they can move immediately to another.

Would workers be better off if health care was not tied to a job?

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