TW: The graphic above has many implications. It displays compensation less health care benefits. Total compensation has been rising but take home pay after health care benefits is flat. This is what happens when health care costs continue to rise inexorably faster than other costs and productivity.
This graph also displays why those with 3rd party health care providers (i.e. Medicare, auto workers or senior executive or public service union members with favorable plans) are inoculated largely against this dynamic while the rest of the population stagnates or worse.
From Ezra Klein at WaPo:
"Health care reform is a pretty big issue in the United States. Arguably the biggest domestic issue there is. But it's a much smaller issue than it should be.
...The mechanism here is simple enough. As the report says, "Since health insurance premiums are growing more rapidly than total compensation in percentage terms, an increasing share of total compensation that a worker receives goes to cover health insurance premiums."
...That slumping line isn't normally called wages-minus-health-premiums. It's called wages. And most workers think stagnant wages mean their employer is paying them less. They don't know that the main reason for stagnant wages is that their wage increases are going to pay for their health insurance premiums. If they did -- if they realized that compensation is pretty much a zero-sum endeavor and their employers don't so much buy them health insurance as garnish their wages to pay for their health insurance -- you'd probably see a lot more general anger at rising health care costs."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/blogging_the_cea_health_care_r_1.html
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