Eh, the article is focusing on the trends. If the trend continues, that's where we could well end up. Of course, right now, it's a "tell us which government-approved program you want us to contribute to," in the same way that my alcoholic father refused to pay his child support, but would instead paternalistically pay my mom's rent. But eventually as the burden to understand social insurance gets shifted over to employees, it could easily go that way.

People will look up and say, well we have this huge 'benefits' apparatus whose only real purpose is to manage the social costs of health care when it looks like people are managing just fine without it.

You and I might look at the apparatus as overbearing, but the reality of it is, most people just don't have the time, patience, or inclination to care about their health, and it imposes huge social costs. When Grandma starts losing the little quality-of-life she has left, rather than an honest discussion, we have people saying, "keep her alive at all costs!" A big part of the health care infrastructure we have is structurally set up to deal with people making irrational demands of it.

Once people start to understand health and how to think about it and pay for it, there's no reason why things like the individual mandate can't go the way of the dodo.