From Sunday's NY Times:

"Do Some Pay Too Little for Health Care?"

This article illustrates how medical spending is influenced by the highly
subsidized prices generated by our current employer-based system of health care
payment that actually has none of the essential features of actual "insurance"
that you see in other true insurance markets.

"Consider what would happen if employers paid for their workers' car insurance
and if that insurance covered routine maintenance. No doubt, the price of
repairs and the cost of auto insurance would skyrocket.

.....Americans see doctors more often, have more procedures and take more
medicine than they need because most, if not all, of the cost is covered by
insurance.

'When consumers don't have to pay any regard to price, they
overconsume........you get more value for what you buy when you have a stake in
it.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/weekinreview/26ROSE.html?ex=1068204552&ei=1&en\
=ec1003dc6e396e84