One negative feature of our current system of healthcare finance is the fact that health insurance is tied to employment.  This makes changing jobs more difficult and self-employment more expensive, since employer-provided healthcare benefits are excluded from tax while self-employed people can only deduct it from their taxes, a deduction that might be worth very little.

I have other reasons for not trying self-employment, but this is a significant barrier.  The reason it's hidden away there in that employer contribution is so that we don't know how much it actually costs, and, as I pointed out yesterday, even the obvious part costs a lot.  The self-employed see more of the real cost.

That's not to say that the cost is obviously too high.  "More than I wish I had to pay" is not necessarily too high.  But I wish we could all clearly see the cost, and that the cost didn't depend on whether you had a large or small employer, or whether you decided to provide your services on a contract basis rather than as part of firm.  None of those things have anything to do with the actual provision of healthcare services.