Linking health insurance to employment acts as a filtering mechanism preventing the chronically ill from obtaining private health coverage. In general, those who were able to work are not sick.
For those who are too sick to work, “you get lousy Medicaid,” says a patient who blogs at Duncan Cross. When COBRA and FMLA were passed, it allowed sick people who “previously have been ejected from the system could stay in, with or without working. This was good for sick people, but bad for employers and insurers.”
It may not be only factor driving up costs, but it’s noted that the cost of care really exploded after COBRA became law in 1986.
