Well that's a myth. If you are on an HSA you can be screwed over in one big event. Likewise with deductibles and premiums for a family on other plans you can see health care costs at $10k easily. So you can't say that no highly paid tech employee is pay 10s of thousands b/c I know a few that are.

When there was holes in coverage, I easily paid 10k in a year without major events. I switched to just paying a flat rate for the most coverage, so I pay up front. I think I pay what, 400 a month for 85% coverage. I'm paying quite a bit of that 10k up front, and if anything happens it's mostly covered.

Healthcare is a disaster in the US.