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Ezra Klein:

As per usual, if anyone is still confused as to the median voter's stubborn resistance to admitting the economy's overall awesomeness, new data showing that health premiums went up 7.7 percent in 2005 may help illuminate things. 7.7 percent, after all, was more than twice the inflation rate and the growth in worker's wages. In fact, since 2000, health premiums have gone up by 87 percent. Somehow, I doubt the average worker's salary has done the same.

Eventually this nation will get serious about solving its problems, but until then the average person will continue to suffer needlessly. We spend more per capita on health care than any other advanced industrialized nation in the world, and yet 45 million people are uninsured. Health care costs are spiraling out of control, but supposedly that's OK because the economy is growing and profits are up. Inefficiency in the market is hurting everyone while benefiting a few, and yet somehow that's something all of us are supposed to applaud. Brilliant.