I think the meager growth in health care spending is not nearly big enough to cover the discrepancy between the increase in salaries predicted by extrapolating market forces and what the salaries actually are.
Not to mention, most low paying jobs don't provide health care.
This is something that can easily be referenced. Benefits make up around 30% of workers wages with health insurance around 8%. If health care expenditures grow at 4%, that's 0.32% wage growth from health care costs. You may consider that insiginificant but I don't.
> If health care expenditures grow at 4%, that's 0.32% wage growth from health care costs.
So if you earn $100,000 each year you get a raise of $320 due to health care? To be honest with you, that seems pretty insignificant. And it's also sort of a feedback loop - the quality of care isn't increasing - the system is only costing more because the system can charge more. All that's doing is accounting for "healthcare inflation", and if a cost of living raise is a significant raise, something is wrong.
Not to mention, most low paying jobs don't provide health care.