The tie between health insurance and employment: It's the IRS stupid!
It's the most wonderful (?) time of the year It's that time of the year. Change is in the air. There is that flurry of excitement that comes from new beginnings. You guessed it - open enrollment is here. People are shopping for insurance plans, which these days can mean looking at the health care marketplaces, assessing medicare plans, or looking at the options an employer provides during this open enrollment season. About half of us get our health insurance through an employer - but why? The story that you most often hear is that it all started during World War II. Amidst stiff competition for employees, benefits were even more important due to the federally-imposed wage cap. That story is almost right, but not quite. Really, the most important factor of why we receive our health insurance through our employers is the tax write off. Also, offering health insurance has been a strategy to hopefully keep employees - a way for employers to garner loyalty, especially in union-heav...
