This is a social and financial engineering problem - change the tax structure to encourage people to get private insurance. Make the cost of private insurance 150% deductible for one year, then 140% deductible the second year, etc. for 5 years to encourage more people to do it. As more people have private insurance vs employer provided, the market economics would shift.
Sure, not all companies offer bad 401k plans. Enough do that it's not something that we should continue to encourage though - pay people more and let them make their own decisions. That money for 'benefits' isn't freely coming from nowhere - it's the cost of employing you, and it could just as easily go in to your pocket vs the pockets of plan administrators that you didn't get to choose.
Sure, not all companies offer bad 401k plans. Enough do that it's not something that we should continue to encourage though - pay people more and let them make their own decisions. That money for 'benefits' isn't freely coming from nowhere - it's the cost of employing you, and it could just as easily go in to your pocket vs the pockets of plan administrators that you didn't get to choose.