How much control should companies have over employees’ lifestyles away from the workplace?

In 1997, when Jason Crawforth started Treetop Tech, a software development company in Boise, Idaho, he did not offer company-sponsored health insurance because he believed that his small company could not afford the cost. He soon realized, however, that he could not afford not to offer health insurance. “We started losing potential employees because of that,” he says. In 2000, Crawforth added health insurance coverage to his employees’ benefits package, just in time to watch premiums skyrocket over the next decade.