Older workers are more likely to utilize health insurance for major procedures. More claims will drive up group health insurance rates. For a business that subsidizes employee health insurance, this is a bottom line cost. For a business that does not, higher health insurance costs are still a competitive disadvantage.

Because health insurance is so expensive, the costs can be non-trivial and not hiring older workers can be economically rational. The cost of adding people who utilize health care services to the pool establishing group policy rates is why employer provided health insurance policies typically excluded pre-existing conditions until it became illegal.

As fear of going without is a brake upon entrepreneurship, the rate increase from older workers is a brake upon productivity that derives from national health care policy.