Fun historical note: This system wasn’t “designed,” per se. Health care and other benefits became tied to employment during I believe the Korean War, where there were limits on *raising* salaries, so employers attracted workers by providing benefits. https://twitter.com/connconnection/status/1386292991057440769

But one of the first companies to provide healthcare was actually Kaiser (then a steel company) during the industrial revolution, because employers realized that healthy workers were good for business.

So it’s less of a poor system design issue and more of an inertia issue, where once government got involved they decided to work in the existing framework rather than start from scratch.