The typical argument in favor of the United States’ uniquesystem of health care often centers on the freedom consumers have to choose thebenefits that best meet their needs.

In reality, however, few Americans are truly health care shoppers. Most getinsurance through their employer, and even if the employer offersan array of options, many employees don’t understand the benefitsthey can choose from.

A recent poll by Chicago-based employee communication softwarecompany Jellyvision found that 48 percent of U.S. workers saythat making choices about healthinsurance is “very stressful.” Forty-one percent sayenrolling in their employer’s health plan is very confusing.

Roughly half of the 2,000 benefit-eligible employees surveyedsay they don’t know what the out-of-pocket maximum is for theirhealth plan. A similar percentage couldn’t say what their employercontribution to the plan was.

The key for employers is the 56 percent who say they wouldappreciate help from the company in making health plan decisions.That figure, argues HR Dive, represents a major opportunity foremployers to help workers out. The best way to help them through aprocess they find convoluted, it adds, is by using simple languageto explain the steps and options.

“Employers are seeing success with the right combination ofaccurate, clear information and tools to explain the perks inclean, clear language,” writes HR Dive’s Tom Starner.

While past surveys have shown that American workers stronglyconsider benefits when choosing a job, there is an equal amount ofevidence that shows they don’t have a strong grasp of the benefitstheir employers offer them, including health insurance andretirement.

Much of the ignorance is because of the fact that forgenerations, many employers have offered comprehensive insurancethat covered the great majority of workers’ health care costs.Relatively few workers with employer-based insurance had to makedecisions about costs; those were made by the employer and remainedlargely hidden from the average employee.

After nearly two decades of rapidly rising health costs,however, many employers are moving toward high-deductible healthplans or consumer-driven health plans. More are also offering agreater array of plans for workers to pick from.

In the long term, advocates hope, employees will become moresophisticated health care shoppers and make choices that prod thehealth care system into competing for consumers in a way that ismore in line with traditional market economics. But the countrystill has a ways to go.