> many things are more expensive when you don't work at a company - for example the health care for a marginal employee at GE is a lot cheaper than you'll get for yourself.

This is less true following the Affordable Care Act than it used to be. The unsubsidised marketplace rate for my Kaiser health insurance seems fairly close to what I pay for COBRA from my former big tech employer.

But COBRA is more expensive than the same plan when paid by the employer with pre-tax dollars.

Interesting.

My Kaiser almost doubled from COBRA and coverage went from better-than-platinum to high deductible gold.

Google / SF market.

I have Google COBRA in SF too and when I last looked a year or so ago it was about $100/year more on the marketplace for the KP platinum plan.

Age makes a huge difference to the marketplace premiums though.

Healthcare cost doesn't scale with the $200 base salary, though.