I follow the argument about using more health care, but if I must pay 15% more for my coverage this year than last, and each visit is 10% more expensive because of higher demand, and CPI says it is only 3%, what is the other 12%?
Is the suggestion that Joe Middle Class does not experience the other 12% increase, or that the benefit of the insurance is now 12% greater to him – so no effect on CPI?
Another question stems from your statement that “most people don’t fully grasp what the CPI measures; it measures changes in the price of the SAME goods or services”. Did you not know that it no longer measures the same bread basket of goods? That various supstitutions and geometric weightings and other inclusions since 1980 prevent it from measuring the SAME goods?