Health overhaul might relieve 'job lock' phenomenon

MarketWatch reports that people "may feel emboldened to start businesses or change jobs because they'll no longer fear having to go without health insurance" if a health care reform bill passes. One overlooked price of the health system's current "distortions," MarketWatch terms it, is the phenomena of "job lock" where workers stay in their jobs solely for the medical benefits. "Job lock costs U.S. workers an estimated $3.7 billion every year in foregone wages, according to a 2009 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The status quo is hurting business creation and job mobility, according to research done by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz." Reasonably priced insurance could help, he says. Tax credits to small businesses that can't afford to cover workers could also help, MarketWatch reports (Gerencher, 1/14).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.