Families USA, a national organization that promotes affordable health care, put out a report Thursday morning that repeatedly featured the phrase "hidden tax." Most Americans have a deep suspicion of the taxes they can see. The idea that some taxes lurk out of sight only increases their unease.

The report points to the additional premiums that insured Americans pay for the uncompensated care of the uninsured. This "hidden" health tax in 2008 amounted to:

— $1,017 for family health care coverage, and

— $368 for individual health care coverage.

According to the report, conducted by an actuarial consulting firm named Milliman, Inc., said Americans without health insurance got $116 billion in care during 2008. Hospitals, doctors and other providers recovered 63 percent of the costs through personal payments, charities, government programs and other sources. The rest, about $42.7 billion, just stood as uncompensated care.

Thus, the costs shifted to insurers and, ultimately, the insured.

"Going without health insurance profoundly affects both the economic and physical well-being of uninsured Americans," the report concludes. "But the uninsured are not the only people who bear the consequences."

Click here to read the report.

The hidden-tax aspect of this comes into play with the approaching national debate on health care coverage. President Obama and Congress look to push a sweeping plan, possibly as early as this summer.

Opponents are already gearing up their argument that the U.S. budget can't withstand reform's trillion-dollar hit. This report augurs the opposite case. Those who oppose some sort of univeral coverage will call it a tax increase, and supporters will say taxes are already in place, just hidden.

The health-care debate will have plenty of strings hanging from it. The portion about paying for the reforms will look more like a rope.