While it's true that you can't have someone be absent from work indefinitely, it's missing the point of the post. Healthcare in the US is tied to employment. A guy with cancer gets laid off, he can't get care, he dies. Therefore he can only stay alive from people throwing sick days at him to string him along on his employer's health plan.

Hence the notion that maybe this isn't a very good system for either the employer or employee.

That's where my thoughts lead to as well. I mean there is only so many times a person who has a key position in the workforce can miss before the productivity of the work suffers. My College professor was sick half the damn semester my first year. No sub, no plan, just a bunch of drafting students without any way of completing the assignments he still assigned yet never taught. The entire class failed save for one student who was the only one who knew what to do because he was that smart. And he nearly failed.