Another reason for non-employer-based health coverage (employment, healthcare, insurance, medical)

[KellyXY]

In light of the recent thread on smokers on the "Work and Employment" board I thought of another good reason why we need to decouple health insurance from one's employer: It would likely help cut down on discrimination against groups that use more healthcare than average. That includes older workers, women of childbearing age, people with disabilities or other medical conditions, transgender people, smokers, etc. Without the monetary incentive involved with health insurance there would be less or no tangible reason for discrimination against these groups like there is now with employer-based health insurance.

[reneeh63]

Hard to get traction on this one, OP because everyone thinks it's the OTHER guy who is intentionally doing unhealthy stuff that's raising their rates. They don't want to be paying for THEM - not understanding that it could easily be them with some chronic health issue in a few years.