http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams49.1.html
Something for Nothing
by Walter E. Williams
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Nonwage benefits turn out to be good for the employee because, for the most part, he pays no taxes on them. In other words, if the employer paid the worker the cash value of, say, health insurance as wages, the worker would have to pay income taxes on it and then go out and buy health insurance.
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My take on it is that this was a Faustian deal with the devil.
Early recipients did benefit. Later ones didn’t. So we can’t talk about the “worker” since there are differences over time in the population so labeled.
The mere monetary gain from a tax free “benefit” is far outweighed by the inability to keep those “benefits” when out of work. And, one has to wonder about all the bankruptcies caused by the loss of benefits. All from not be able to buy medical insurance on the open market that would be portable. Without FDR’s wage and price controls, and the bizarre court decision saying it wasn’t income, we’d be buying “health insurance” like we do life, car, or homeowners. We’d have entities like credit unions to amalgamate risks into pools.
Argh!
And, we’d have freedom and liberty from politicians and bureaucrats!
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Reinke Faces Life 