Hidden health care costs

First we need to understand that we are already paying, as a society, all the health care costs - those that are obvious and those that are hidden.
The average Joe (like me) pays for part of the cost of my health insurance, which is heavily subsidized by my employer. So, for instance, I pay around $300 per month for family coverage. My employer pays more than that - probably round $400 a month - to cover my family and me.
In addition to private health insurance, I pay Medicare taxes, which pays for current Medicare beneficiaries to cover their health care costs. There is this huge misconception that Medicare beneficiaries banked their money years ago and are now withdrawing it to pay for their medical expenses. In fact, the money that Medicare beneficiaries are currently spending is the same money that you and I are paying in Medicare taxes today. The average Medicare beneficiary spends every penny he or she has "banked" very early in his/her Medicare career. Their costs are significantly higher than whatever they "socked away."

Now, the hidden taxes.

My health insurance premiums are probably a thousand dollars or two higher than they should be, because hospitals shift costs from uninsured and underinsured patients to those of us who are insured.
Then, I pay state taxes, which go to cover the state's portion of Medicaid expenses. And I pay federal taxes to pay the costs of the federal portion of Medicaid. On top of that, in the county in which I reside, I pay a penny of sales tax to support the charity hospital in my town. So between my own health plan, and the extra costs tacked onto my own health plan, and the Medicaid and Medicare taxes I pay, AND the premiums my employer pays, we are paying, collectively, for my health care and everyone else's.

The fallacy that many people are buying into right now is that the cost of health care is going to skyrocket as a result of health care reform. In fact, the cost is not going to skyrocket at all. Are we are doing is merely naming all the hidden expenses that we are already paying for. If anything, now that we are explicitly naming all the expenses that we are already paying, we can now reduce those expenses by bringing them under control.

Later on, we'll discuss who is paying for what; that is, which sub-groups of folks are paying for health care and which groups aren't. But right now, I'm focusing on how all of us, as a society, are paying the health care costs.