Williams exposed all that's wrong with health insurance

Venus Williams returned to the professional tennis circuit in July with a win in the first round of the DC Open. (She lost in a late round.) In an interview on the court following the match, the 45-year-old made a somewhat surprising admission on why she decided to return to competitive tennis.

- Kathryn Anne Edwards, Tribune News Service

"I had to come back for the insurance because they informed me earlier this year I'm on COBRA," she said, referring to the federal law that allows individuals to temporarily continue their employer-sponsored health insurance after leaving a job by paying the premiums. Williams has made more than $40 million in prize money during her tennis career and has a net worth estimated to be almost $IOO million. There's little worry she'd become uninsured due to lack of funds. Still, her comments get at the problem buried so deep into our system of health insurance that no policymaker has the nerve to touch it, which is that health and work shouldn't be linked.

Although America’s system of health insurance is built on employer-sponsored coverage, there's scant labour market or health justification for this arrangement. The strongest part of the system is the depth of entrenched interests, rather than, say, producing good health outcomes, controlling costs or providing coverage to as many people as possible. Yet, policymakers have made clear that rather than rock this boat, they'd prefer to wait for it to tip over on its own.