If corporations could stop offering health insurance in order to increase profits, why don't they do it?

They're legally required to offer health insurance plans for full-time employees.

Most employers did it for decades before they were legally required to. The tax benefit to having your employer purchase your healthcare has been substantial since about World War II and such plans have been commonplace ever since, outside of unusually small employers or employees who are marginally paid.

> Most employers did it for decades before they were legally required to.

They also had pension plans, but these days, those are rare outside of government jobs. I wouldn't be surprised if companies clawed them back as the threat from unions dwindled.

United Airlines declared bankruptcy to get out of paying into a pension plan after not paying the proper amount into them for year so they could appear to be more profitable.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-may-11-fi-unite....

A 401k is probably better since the company is paying funds directly to your account, IOW they can't underfund it.

That said, Raytheon ended up fucking over their 401k plan. Raytheon matched in company stock and required that 401k owners held the company stock for 3 years once it was put into the plan. It worked great until 2005 when Raytheon's stock dropped to 1/3 of the price on news of gross of mismanagement. Employees couldn't get out of the stock, and were forced to swallow the loss.

So even on a 401k details matter.

While I will be the recipient of a decent pension that probably wasn't really on my radar early-ish career, defined benefit private pensions are not really great overall.

They tend to reward long tenures at companies. Even with government sort-of guarantees they have risk of insolvency. And ultimately it's just not your money.

I think the big problem with 401ks though are the lack of decent investment opportunities in them and the lack of any meaningful corporate match.

I also really think that congress should forgo the Roth IRA contribution limits for most people. They're arbitrary and limiting.

Most employers provide far more than the minimum required health insurance.

Also the penalty for large employers is much smaller than the cost of health insurance (50% to 18% depending on individual vs group coverage), assuming that if companies didn't provide health insurance they'd pocket the difference means companies should still pay the fine.

Ok. Why do they offer health insurance plans beyond the minimum? Why do they pay above minimum wage? Why do they offer beyond minimum PTO? Equity options?

I'm not disagreeing, but this is the way corporations work in 2022.