I think the core issue as to why employeeship is favored is that those folks that want the freedom of contracting have more personal power and are less disadvantaged compared to the employer. If you are choosing to favor the flexibility of your own hours over other work benefits then you have a much more secure source of income than a lot of working Americans. I think that ensuring that those poorest off have the ability to keep themselves above water is vital - and while I think everyone should be able to better control their work-life balance we live in a society where that isn't valued, so I'm not holding my breath.
This lawsuit was filed by the state of California - this is how the government is providing it. It might be weird (and it is really weird to look at the US) but most of your regulations seem to work by hoping people do good things and then trying to sue the bad actors enough times that everyone backs off of doing not good things.
I'd love to see the US government actually step up to the healthcare plate though - especially after so many years of terrible FDA & Dept. of Edu. policies have led to widespread obesity. Personal responsibility doesn't really work as an excuse when your entire country is an outrageous outlier compared to the rest of the world - that seems more systemic.
I definitely want a gov't healthcare solution here, but I don't think that it's the whole picture. Australia is worse off[1] and they have a better system
