I don't think one can honestly look at employers paying employee's health insurance premium and honestly count that as compensation to the person per se. It's more of a capital expenditure bound to the position in need of being filled by a warm body.
That insurance, in short, is not yours. It is your employer's investment in keeping the occupant of that position a healthy working cog/gear. You just happen to be filling it at the moment.
I really wish we as a society would do a better job at framing these arrangements correctly. You (the employee) never have control of any capital with which to shop around for the best deal. Your employer does. Framing it as belonging to the employee just distorts the picture of what is going where to the point that we can't really say what we're measuring down the road.
That insurance, in short, is not yours. It is your employer's investment in keeping the occupant of that position a healthy working cog/gear. You just happen to be filling it at the moment.
I really wish we as a society would do a better job at framing these arrangements correctly. You (the employee) never have control of any capital with which to shop around for the best deal. Your employer does. Framing it as belonging to the employee just distorts the picture of what is going where to the point that we can't really say what we're measuring down the road.