Premiums down, wages up (and vice versa)

Nice op-ed by Ezra Klein in today's Wash Post. The tax exclusion of employer paid insurance premiums is perhaps the least understood aspect of the health care system....I have been shocked by how many of my friends and colleagues didn't realize that the got tax free income if they have job-based health insurance....and that at $250 Billion cost to the US Treasury each year, that is the third largest health program, after Medicare and Medicaid. Sigh.

The consumer in health care (you and me) is actually a big source of our inability to slow health care cost inflation....we say we want to do it, but not if it means spending less!