Questing for Atlantis

I found it a bit hard to believe, but for once I’m pretty much in agreement with Ezra Klein.

In an op-ed published today he highlights the fact that one of the biggest problems with our current healthcare system is the employer provision of health insurance. Mostly he focuses on the issue of awareness of health insurance costs:

In 2009, the average employer-sponsored health-care plan cost a bit less than $13,500. But virtually no one cut a check for $13,500. Employers generally pay more than 70 percent of their employees’ health-care costs. To employees, that seems like a good deal, particularly given how fast costs are growing. A “benefit,” as it’s called.But health-care coverage is not a benefit. It’s a wage deduction. When premium costs go up, wages go down. When premium costs go down, wages go up. Yet workers don’t know that. In fact, the information is hidden from them. That means that cost control seems like all pain and no gain, which makes it virtually impossible for Congress to pass. It’s like asking someone to diet when they don’t realize it will help them lose weight.

I was glad to see Klein didn’t just stop there. While it didn’t make its way into the op-ed itself, in his post about the op-ed being up, he notes that the problem isn’t just awareness, it’s third-party payment itself:

One of the lessons of this health-care reform process has been that cost control is extremely hard, in part because few of the system’s participants really see an upside. Neither workers nor Medicare beneficiaries nor Medicaid recipients feel the full cost of their insurance coverage

Sadly, Klein disappoints a bit from there on. Instead of following these ideas to their logical conclusion – strip away the tax bias towards employer-provided insurance in order to break the current insurance payment model and replace it with direct payment by individuals – he settles for merely putting the health insurance deduction on every paycheck.

It’s a good idea, so I’m not complaining too much. Still, he could have been for something an awful lot better.