For those interested in a more indepth look at what has gone wrong with our Health Insurance System, I highly recommend this article from the August issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" by David Goldhill called "How American Health Care Killed My Father". Notwithstanding the title, it is a really good explanation for how our system of health insurance has gone off the rails.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

Pay particular attention to the section which explains the difference between Comprehensive Health Insurance and Catastrophic Health Insurance. Most members of our staff have signed up for the former type of insurance, which we offer as either "Core Plus" or the "IN Plan". We also offer a Catastrophic Plan, called "CMP", which costs considerably less in terms premiums and comes with a Health Savings Account as an option.

You'll want to pay attention to those differences, because I think they go right to the heart of the problem discussed in my previous post--the extreme increase in the cost of healthcare insurance which we have been experiencing. My suspicion is that over the next year or two the cost of Comprehensive Health Insurance is going to become prohibitively expensive for most employees, and more and more of us will be motivated to choose the CMP Plan or something like it in order to keep our insurance costs lower. We'll see if I am right in the coming months.