Well we should have added "health insurance" in that too. The NYTimes ran an editorial this morning on Anthem Health of California that raised premiums 25%...a nice round number.
My daughter came to dinner Friday night and we got into the Obama-socialism stuff. I think it is fairly widely known (google hdhouse (moi) and liberal and I come up 15 pages deep on the net) that I support the present administration over the last one. I've written about health care on here a lot just because we are don't do very well with what we have. ..life expectancy, infant mortality and about every other measure...we are at the break level between 1st and 2nd world. But we do spend more per person than any other nation on earth. Lots more. She and her husband and daughter and one coming...well their paid by employer health care bill is about $14000/yr. Out of pocket is perhaps another $2000 and a delivery coming up. So what they pay is average but they don't pay and she didn't see anything broken in the system because they don't pay it. Not her fault but my point to her was that "someone pays"...if not her, their company's clients.
Our electrician has 2 kids and spends $18000 a year on premiums alone. He told us. When a "house call" for an electrician starts at $150hr we ask things like "why so much"? If he gets 2 new "patients" a day to fix something that will burn down the house, 1/3 of his hourly goes to keeping his family insured.
30 years ago my BC/BS monthly for my wife and I was $32.00. I bought a VW bug new for $2200. All things being equal, my VW bug should cost about $110,000.