With Americans changing jobs more frequently, more likely to go through spells of unemployment, and more likely to work part-time or to be self-employed, health insurance can’t just run through employers anymore. It needs to be portable. The market alone can’t solve our health-care woes—in part because the market has proven incapable of creating large enough insurance pools to keep costs to individuals affordable, in part because health care is not like other products or services (when your child gets sick, you don’t go shopping for the best bargain).
