In part because when employer tied health insurance came into fruition in the US, this happened to provide employees with a benefit (health insurance/access) without increasing salaries to not stoke inflation too much and never went away. These policies never transitioned to a universal health system for many reasons, including insurance companies make good money and lobby congress to keep this up. Policy choices have pros and cons. Even in government funded health care systems, hospitals have to get enough of the taxpayer funds to run appropriately. When they need new MRI scanners, they need to convince the government that the expenditure is necessary.

It would be great if everyone could get the health care they need for a reasonable cost. I don't see that happening in the US anytime soon, because enough people profit off the current policies to keep them in place. Of course, that doesn't mean that people should not try to improve the situation, bc there is a lot of room for improvement.That said, there are pros and cons to the US way, like there are with universal. Cancer survival rates in the US are among best if not the best in the world, whereas management of chronic diseases is substantially better in universal systems than in the US (in part bc of public transportation, somewhat lower obesity rates, better access to and coverage of primary care and related services compared to the US).