Why Health Insurance is Expensive and Continues to Go Higher

"Verizon Communications Inc. was facing a weekend labor strike deadline as it negotiated Friday with unions representing about 65,000 employees.
"The workers object to the company's plans to require employees to contributed toward health-care coverage costs.
"Verizon currently picks up the entire cost of insurance premiums for C.W.A. (Communications Workers of America) and I.B.E.W. (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) workers."

When something is inexpensive, or outright free, whether through normal market mechanisms or artificially so (such as as in this example), more is demanded of it. When demand increases accordingly, the price goes up in an attempt to reach a market-clearing price. Yet, in cases such as this, the final consumers never feel the pinch of increased prices. So what happens? Their demand continues unabated, and prices continue to rise and the cycle continues.

Read that passage again. Verizon's unionized workers, which fortunately make up a small portion of their entire workforce, pay nothing. Zero, and they want to keep it that way. Do they have no pride, no shame or integrity?? Do you know anyone who has ever bragged about being a freeloader?? They are coddled like babies and now they're crying because their free goodies might be taken away. Welcome to the real world where we pay for essential goods and services!

On a side note, it's interesting that neither Yahoo nor AP, just to name a couple, pointed out the specifics of the health insurance point of contention. This passage was taken from Saturday's Wall Street Journal.