The Enshittification of Private Insurance

One of the more prescient books of our still-young century was Jacob Hacker’s The Great Risk Shift (2008), which explained how government and business were conspiring to eliminate various protections that in the past helped cushion the middle class from financial setbacks. Hacker called for an “insurance and opportunity society” with more robust pension guarantees, less-contingent forms of employment, and universal health care, among other reforms. Without a firm cushion, he argued, people…