Some subsequent court decisions echoed Erickson, and some went the other way, but the rule (absent a Supreme Court decision) remained, and over the following decade, the percentage of employer-based plans offering contraceptive coverage tripled to 90 percent.

The individual LegalRx plan from ARAG, for instance, imposes a 90-day waiting period after sign-up for standard wills and uncontested adoption proceedings, but then pays the full costs; its employer-based plans impose no waiting periods.

As an alternative to the Clintons' cumbersome employer-based plan, Prof. Michael Graetz and I proposed offering Medicare-type coverage to every family or individual at the government's average cost, while encouraging health maintenance organizations and other private insurers to compete by offering equivalent packages.

The proposal is intended to build on the existing employer-based plans that cover 160 million people; on Medicare, which covers 36 million older or disabled people; and on Medicaid and children's programs, which cover an additional 35.9 million.

"You're not going to get the participation rates you do in employer-based plans," said William G. Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal policy group.

Q: If I am choosing between different employer-based plans, what should I look for?

Benefits are skimpy compared with those of employer-based plans.

The plan requires that some 150 million Americans in employer-based plans remain covered in private plans.