No. It's wait a year before the company pays your premium. In every company I've ever been at you can pay it yourself from day one if you like.
It's a monetary bonus. It has nothing whatsoever to do with availability of insurance.
> you absolutely should be able to quit your job for whatever the hell reason you want without ending up uninsured.
Perhaps you (and from the mods, most of the readers) are not aware that you can. It's called COBRA. You have to pay the premiums yourself, but it doesn't cost any extra. While you were working it came out of your salary, now it comes out of your saving (or your new job).
If you don't have a pre-existing chronic condition, you can usually get health insurance for a fee. That fee will probably be high. But it's just another expense you need to budget for when you plan out the financials of starting a company.
You say that as if you see nothing whatsoever wrong with bundling health coverage with employment - and not just employment, it has to be employment at a standard 9-to-5 company that's large enough to actually offer coverage. And God forbid you're not in the higher echelons of the economy and you have to work an hourly grind; look forward to a year's wait at the job before you can get covered.
To me this is just ridiculous; IMO, you absolutely should be able to quit your job for whatever the hell reason you want without ending up uninsured.
I don't care if the government pays or not, frankly - I just want to see a reasonable individual market open up, where the mere fact that you're in the market does not automatically mark you as high risk. If this means forcing all of America to join a risk pool, then so be it, even if I'm healthy and young I'm happy to pay the extra taxes for the increased mobility it affords you career-wise.