"The answer really goes back to World War II, when we had wage and price controls. And so companies were limited in giving pay raises, but companies were allowed to give additional benefits to their workers," explains Dr. Walden, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist.

"And one of the things that companies came up with was they said, 'Hey, we'll provide health insurance.' They also got a tax deduction for that. And this tax law has lasted 'til this day.

"And so that's the real reason why most of us get our health insurance through our employer, because it's cheaper for the employer to do it because they get a tax deduction. If we go out and get it ourselves, in most cases we don't get a similar tax deduction.

"Now many say this has caused problems because if you change jobs you have to worry about changing your health insurance," he adds. "You have to worry about whether your new employer will have the same kind of health insurance. It also means that the consumer is not as directly involved as much in picking the health insurance policy as we are, for example, in picking our auto or home insurance policy.

"So some have said we need to level the playing field. We either need to get rid of the tax deduction for health insurance for businesses, or we need to give a similar deduction for individuals who go out and directly get their health insurance from a business. And this is a major controversy. It's one that's not yet been resolved."