Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel hit a nerve with her commentary on "What Women Want." She explains that our progressive income tax system puts a disproportionate burden on married working women by taxing their income at the family's highest marginal rate.

But these women often carry yet another burden: Many are locked into jobs that they would like to quit but can't because they can't afford to lose the health insurance that covers them and their families. If they have health insurance at all…

This is not a new issue: A public opinion poll conducted before the presidential elections in 2000 found that a large majority of women -- 72 percent -- would like their health insurance to be independent of their employment. This was not even one of the issues the pollsters had intended to ask about, but they said it came up repeatedly.

Twenty-first century health policy would allow portability of health insurance by allowing the tax break for health insurance to follow the individual as a person. It's an essential policy change in our mobile society in which one of four workers changes jobs every year.