Tri-Met and health care costs

I'm a so-called Ride Ambassador for Portland's public transportation system called Tri-Met,. There are big changes coming which include increased fares, reduced service, and a new streetcar line. Ending this Fall will be the so-called free rail zone in which people could ride the light rail or the streetcar for free in the downtown area. Other aspects of management or mismanagement aside, the heavy bufrden of the health insurance has Tri-Met in a bind. Years ago when the system was flush management foolishly set up lifetime health coverage for employees after they had worked for ten years. I know of no other company that does this.
Historically, health insurance was introduced during World War II when there was wagfe and price fixing. Employers like Kaiser shipbuilding set up a health plan to retain workers, and Kaiser Permanente remains as a major local health provider even though there is no longer any Kaiser shipbuilding. The point is, employer provided health insurance is a relative new invention.
It doesn't work that way in European socialist countries. I have small pensions in Denmark and Sweden for years worked abroad and I get the tax returns every year. In Denmark the income tax has an 8% health tax, just as we have social security tax in this country. Everybody is covered and it's a single payer system. No employer is dictated to by a health insurance company that says you can't hire a diabetic, or a smoker, because they are expensive in the health care department. In this country the employer's group health plan dictates who can or cannot be hired.
It's time we took the burden of looking for and administering health insurance off the backs of employers.
One disturbing fact that has recently emerged is that in the USA there is less upward mobility than there is in Denmarkand Sweden where I have worked. That anybody can be successful and rise out of poverty to become a CEO or the President is a myth here. Once in poverty in the USA you are stuck.
Our form of greed capitalism is out of control, so the 99 percent are stuck and the 1% super wealthy don't care. They have brainwashed the American public into thinking that socialism equals communism and that a so-called "nanny state" is a failure. The failure is here.
No system is perfect and there will always be someone who games the system to exploit the loopholes, but what is a country for? Its people? Or an oligarchy? I'm for the people.
In Denmark and Sweden college is free, paid for out of the taxes, and there are apprenticeship programs for people who do not seek an academic career. I went to college in both countries. I have had a student debt, but in the USA the current generation of young people is in despair over the high cost of college. They acquire debt they will never pay off to get degrees that do not lead to a career or a job. Colleges, to boot enrollment, have dummied down and offer silly courses like "Interpersonal Relations."
I guess it has to get a lot worse before people cry out "Enough!" and change things.

Now I'll get off my soap box and go get breakfast... Thanks for reading this.