Today's Wall Street Journal has an article titled "Newly Out of Job? Here's How to Replace the Health Benefits."

To illustrate the absurdity of our system, imagine these headlines:

"Out of Job? How to Replace Your Cable TV Benefits"

"Out of a Job? How to Replace Your Food Benefits"

"Out of a Job? How to Find a New Apartment When You Lose Your Company Housing"

Working gives us income which we then use to buy food, clothing, housing, cable tv, and so forth--all independent of our employer.

Yet only in health insurance does our public policy tilt us towards letting the employer act as a middleman. Imagine your HR department deciding whether your car will have an automatic transmission--or an air conditioner or a heater! Yet that's roughly what we have in health insurance.

To complete the analogy, if the logic of our health insurance system was applied elsewhere, you'd have to move to a new house or sell your car for a different one whenever you change jobs.