In article ,
Norminn wrote:

C
etc. We need more competition in healthcare? Rubbish - that means a
lot more dollars going for advertising. The CEO
of United Healthcare (adverts on TV every 30 seconds) made more than 120
million bucks.

Actually he was probably paid around a million in salary, that is the
most that can be deducted. The rest is most likely in bonuses and stock
options that receive favorable tax treatment (and have for years, back
to the early 90s) because these kinds of things align the interests of
the boss with the shareholders according to the wiz kids in Congress who
write the laws.
The upshot is that CEOs now receive orders of magnitude more money
than even the most out of control board would have had the balls to give
them and the CEOs are remotely in line with the shareholders because so
much of their pay comes from options and bonuses that they feel the need
to cook the books. Most of the really nasty things where they play with
the books have been since the tax lawyers were changed. Oops.
They send out so much
junk mail we will need to build another landfill. McCain wanted to tax
employer paid health plans, as goofy as it gets.
HC is going up fast and the 2500/5000 "tax credit" would soon kill off
such plans.

For most of the last 30 years, the annual report on a health care
expenditures have consistently found that less than 20% of all
expenditures for healthcare come out of the pocket of the individual
(including the o-o-p part of the premium). When you have something that
is 80% subsidized, let alone the weirdness that ensues because of the
divorce from the entity paying for a service (your employer) and the
person actually using the service (you), then you hardly have a market
in any sense of the word.
I have long thought that before we give up on free markets in
healthcare, maybe we should actually TRY it first.