I'll take your numbers at face value though they seem high to me as take home pay. So $15k/mo at around 35% taxes, and let's skip marginal rate, as that will ro

I'll take your numbers at face value though they seem high to me as take home pay. So $15k/mo at around 35% taxes, and let's skip marginal rate, as that will round numbers in favor of health insurance being negligible. So total pay around $240k/yr. I spend $600/mo or around $7k/yr on health insurance. 7/240 ~= 3%. So even for a very well paid software engineer, health insurance could effectively push you up 3% as your effective tax rate. Plus all the headaches that go with it.