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Kurt Ullman

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:

Let alone employee contributions to health insurance premiums,
totally-employee-funded health insurance premiums, private sector employer
contributions to employee health insurance premiums, self employed paying
mainly 100% out-of-pocket, and about 15% of USA's population remaining
uncovered by any of the above!

Overall, less than 20% of healthcare expenditures in the US are
out-of-pocket, and that includes the premiums for insurance. This is
from the annual report from the Office of the Actuary at Medicare and
includes ALL healthcare expenditures in the US and has been remarkably
stable over the last 20 years I have been following it.
So, you get something that is subsidized 80% or better and then
wonder why everything costs so much. Also since much of even the 20% is
essentially hidden because it is taken out of a paycheck, you get people
even more divorced from econ reality.
About 90% of the problem could probably be taken care of by
divorcing health insurance payment from the job.