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The Self-Own of Employer Offered Healthcare Coverage
Joe is Wypoxic
October 23, 2025
From the Wall Street Journal. Nothing to see here. Move along…
The Average Cost of a Family Health Insurance Plan Is Now $27,000
Higher spending on chronic diseases, weight-loss drugs and hospital bills help drive the increase
“The cost of health insurance rose steeply for a third year in a row in 2025, reaching just under $27,000 for a family plan, according to an annual survey from the nonprofit KFF, which provides the broadest picture of U.S. employer health coverage.
…The cost is rising faster than inflation, and economists and business leaders said it could bite into employment and wage growth.
“If healthcare costs go up faster than the economy in general, that means there’s less money left over to go to wages,” said Gary Claxton, a senior vice president at KFF.”
A quick reminder: the employer offered healthcare model arose essentially by accident. During WWII, wages were frozen, and companies began offering extra benefits as a way to compete for labor (2 ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF EMPLOYMENT-BASED HEALTH BENEFITS | Employment and Health Benefits: A Connection at Risk | The National Academies Press).
Here’s the thing: Any organization that offers healthcare coverage, insurance or reimbursement, is actually in two lines of business: 1) whatever product/service they offer, and 2) healthcare. And for most of the organizations, #2 - healthcare - is not their core competency.
This is, not to be overly dramatic, insane. Ok - maybe that’s a bit dramatic - but it is basically true.
The employer-sponsored healthcare model has two distinct major disadvantages (and many more minor ones as well). First, it increases costs for whatever product/service a specific company sells (every vehicle made in America has a hidden premium (or a hidden tax) of several thousand dollars due to healthcare costs incurred by the company producing that vehicle). Second, every USA-based company is less competitive against foreign competitors due to this “hidden healthcare tax” baked into their corporate costs.
No other country in the developed world utilizes this ridiculous model for covering the costs of healthcare for its population.
This has to change…
NEXT: why the USA healthcare “system” is not really one system, but actually a hodge-podge of several systems, reducing effectiveness, efficiency and [propping up cost.
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