Decoupling health insurance contracts from employment is absolutely necessary, though not sufficient. Do it like the UK, do it like Germany, or do something else, but as long as the health insurance contract itself (not just the payment of some or all of it) is through one’s employer, a lot of otherwise financially stable people in the US are utterly at their employers’ mercy.
> HUDSON: This was the one thing that Alan Greenspan contributed to economic theory: the Traumatized Worker Syndrome. He said, the reason you’ve had this huge productivity gain without any wage increase is workers are afraid to go on strike, or even to complain about working conditions, because they’re just one paycheck away from homelessness.
And probably some sort of minimal unconditional financial security denying corporations to practically take people hostage.