I don't know about that. If your employer were to pay you more and you were to use your salary to buy health insurance, you'd be bumped into a higher tax bracke

I don't know about that. If your employer were to pay you more and you were to use your salary to buy health insurance, you'd be bumped into a higher tax bracket and you'd be using post tax money to buy the insurance. It's not a long term benefit because the government should be able to lower taxes given the increased revenue, but you'd never look past the short term (and the government would never lower taxes).