Wonkblog's Ezra Klein published 21 charts yesterday from the International Federation of Health Plans that illustrate just how ridiculous our health care prices are in the United States.

Klein writes:

This is the fundamental fact of American health care: We pay much, much more than other countries do for the exact same things. For a detailed explanation of why, see this article. But this post isn’t about the why. It’s about the prices and the graphs. 

As previously reported, the Mine Workers (UMWA) union has been saying that Patriot Coal was specifically designed to fail so that former parent company Peabody Energy Corp. could eliminate health care costs associated with former workers in their mines. Patriot was originally spun off of Peabody and was started with much of Peabody's obligations to its retired workers, but very little of Peabody's assets. UMWA argued that Patriot was using bankruptcy to get out of living up to those obligations. Now Patriot filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to create a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) to replace the existing retiree health care system. According to UMWA, the VEBA would cover only a fraction of the obligations owed to retired workers and their families.

For today's health care read, check out these new stories from Think Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP):

CBO May Have Undershot Medicare’s Future Deficit Reduction By Over $300 Billion

Projected Medicaid Spending Has Fallen by More Than $200 Billion

While many Republicans balked at passing $60 billion in relief for Hurricane Sandy cleanup (they eventually passed a little higher than $50 billion), TIME’s Steven Brill wrote that the United States spends nearly that much in health care costs each week.

In Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, Brill asks the question very few people raise: Why does the United States pay so much for health care?

The president opened last week's State of the Union address, calling for "modest" changes to contain Medicare costs. One of the president's primary audiences, Congress, faces a series of deadlines in the coming months, including automatic spending cuts on March 1, expiration of the federal budget patch on March 27 and the impending debt ceiling this summer. Any one of these deadlines may force decisions about Medicare's future.

Americans overspend $750 billion in health care each year. One-fifth of our economy enriches very few at the expense of everyone else. Labs, drug companies, medical device makers, hospital administrators and purveyors of CT scans, MRIs, canes and wheelchairs are some of the entities and people reaping the financial rewards by gaming the health care system, writes Time magazine's Steven Brill in a fascinating, in-depth look at why health care prices are just "too damn high" in Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. 

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post by Diane Archer, the former president of the Medicare Rights Center.

As both our national debt and health care costs continue to swell, America's CEOs and other "influentials" have targeted Medicare as a key culprit and insist that Congress cut Medicare spending in the current deficit discussions. In truth, we do not have a "Medicare problem" in this country; we have a big problem with rising health care costs.

A new report on retiree health care reinforces the need to maintain the Affordable Care Act—not repeal it, as presidential candidate Mitt Romney vows to do—and strengthen Medicare by rejecting “coupon care” private system proposals like the Romney-Ryan plan.   

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) report, “Employment-Based Retiree Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997‒2010,” quantifies what we all know, fewer employers are offering health care benefits to their retirees—both early retirees and those Medicare-eligible at 65—and those that do are raising the cost to retirees.

Choosing between paying the rent, food or health insurance is a heart-wrenching decision many working people have to make. Just ask Regina Holliday, who lost her husband to cancer because they were unable to pay $1,000 a month for health care. The Affordable Care Act makes it possible for 33 million working people to obtain health care coverage. When you vote this November, take a minute to consider the Holliday's story, featured in a Families USA YouTube video. House Republicans have tried to repeal health care reform 33 times. Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, also would repeal the Affordable Care Act. View more stories from the uninsured and others benefiting from the new health care law on Families USA's YouTube channel. 

If you're curious how much more the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan will cost you, the Center for American Progress Action Fund has a new infographic which spells out exactly what you'd be paying for health care. It's not pretty. View the entire Center for American Progress Action Fund Medicare Infographic.