The greater point is that the cost of essentials has skyrocketed but the effect is hidden in official inflation metrics because they include a large number of nonessential items such as utility-adjusted television prices.

Yeah, I can buy cheap 55 inch tvs for days. But my family's health insurance is still $36k/year (and regularly going up). I guess that can buy me about 75 55 inch tvs though, maybe I should spend it on that instead.

A large number perhaps, but the weight assigned to them is low. Food, housing, and transportation makes up 72.77% of the CPI, whereas televisions only make up 0.091% of the CPI.