At the end of World War II, we had wage and price controls. Under wartime inflationary conditions, many employers found it difficult to recruit emplo… - Milton Friedman

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At the end of World War II, we had wage and price controls. Under wartime inflationary conditions, many employers found it difficult to recruit employees. To get around the limitations of wage control, many began to offer health care as a fringe benefit to attract workers. As a new benefit, it took some years for the Internal Revenue Service to get around to requiring the cost of the medical care to be included in the reported taxable income of the employees. By the time it did, workers had come to regard nontaxable medical care provided by the employer as a right — or should I say entitlement? They raised such a big political fuss that Congress legislated nontaxable status for employer-provided medical care.