One cost that never gets talked about in our current HC "system"

[rurallib]

and that will continue to be true with a compromised system is the cost of people being indentured to their jobs because of health care.
People are afraid to leave their jobs to start small businesses for fear of losing health care.

DevilsTower had a great diary on dailykos about this yesterday:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/16/163442/57

One of those numbers that rarely gets mentioned in the healthcare debate is the cost of "job lock." Because health insurance is tied to employment, people are afraid to risk starting up their own company or taking a job with a new company. The last time we looked at this, the cost of job lock alone figured to be almost as great as the $1 trillion that was then cited as the "cost" of healthcare reform, and that's just the cost in terms of dollars lost from new opportunities. There's another cost to job lock, one that may be still more serious.
<snip>
In the cradle of American innovation, workers are making career choices based on co-payments, pre-existing conditions and other minutiae of health insurance. ... It is impossible to know how much economic damage these distortions are causing, but they clearly aren’t good. Economic research suggests that more than 1.5 million workers who would otherwise have switched jobs fail to do so every year because of fears about health insurance. Some of them would have moved to companies where they could have contributed more, and others would have started their own businesses.
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One thing not mentioned in there is that the US is no longer the only place where highly talented people want to emigrate to. This also kills innovation and jobs.

[MineralMan]

1. That and outsourcing, which takes away workers' incomes

and their health insurance with it. Both are economic depressors and contribute to the health care crisis.