The main reason the U.S. health care system is broken is that your employer-provided health care is not taxed, but household health care spending is first taxed

The main reason the U.S. health care system is broken is that your employer-provided health care is not taxed, but household health care spending is first taxed as income. So everybody is jammed into their employer-provided care and you're hammered if you're outside that system and have to buy health care on your own. Obama tried to start to tax lavish employer plans, which was a sensible reform. Alternatively you could just let all Americans deduct their health care insurance. The current system causes distortions and is profoundly unfair to self-employed.