For the first time since 1986, the biggest hardship facing small businesses is no longer taxes--it is now health care costs.
About half of all U.S. workers are employed by the nation’s 5.8 million small businesses. As health care costs rise, more and more workers will be forced to go without company-sponsored health insurance or pay more out of pocket--and paying more out of pocket means there is less to spend on other goods.
Health care costs for companies with fewer than 200 workers are rising about 15 percent this year, while costs for companies with 500 or more workers have seen 13.5 percent increases.
Small businesses are known to create most new jobs and are therefore imperative to economic recovery, however only one percent of companies plans to add new workers this year, a rate that is the lowest since 1991.
Instead, as health care costs continue to rise, companies are eliminating benefits and shifting health care costs to employees along with cutting overhead costs.
For example, one company raised the annual deductible paid by employees $500 and increased doctor visit co-pays from $15 to $20. Another company was forced to delay computer upgrades, which means losses in productivity, after facing premium increases of 36 percent, on top of a 17 percent increase in 2002.
USA Today April 20, 2003
There is clearly no question that we have an ever-increasing insurance crisis in this country for medical coverage. Please don’t let the media persuade you otherwise--this problem is only going to get worse.
Until a radical change in the paradigm occurs, health care costs will continue to escalate. The traditional media will, of course, claim that the solution is to levy some new tax to provide these health care benefits to those who cannot afford them.
This is a prescription for disaster. Another socialized medical system will only repeat the Medicare catastrophe we already have.
The solution is to change the entire system. Unless we change the system, drug companies will continue to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy with virtually no benefit--other than making themselves richer.
YOU can make a difference by applying the principles in this newsletter. If you haven’t already asked everyone you know who might be interested in receiving this newsletter to sign up, please do so now. A personalized e-mail seems to work best.
Our country will become increasingly unable to support such an expense without major sacrifices by millions of people.
The solution is to redirect the spending to care that will build the health of the country and provide people with the energy to be more productive. The extra productivity would theoretically create more than enough additional wealth to pay for all the health care that we would need.
When our nation is focused on health achievement, rather than disease treatment, the total cost of providing medical care would dramatically decline, because healthy people require less medical resources.
The system has been broke for some time now and as the article above shows, it is only getting worse.
The United States currently spends about $1.5 trillion for health care, and the projections are that it will double in less than 10 years.
Like the late Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois was fond of saying when he was referring to the Defense Department budget, "A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there and before you know it you are talking real money."
Well we are talking a lot more than a few billion dollars. How about something like a nearly $1.5 trillion, an amount that is even beyond Bill Gates’ level.
The sad tragedy is that we are spending all of this money on disease management focused on drugs and surgery and our return on this investment is profoundly poor.
Retail pharmacies filled 3 billion prescriptions in 2000.
We are not achieving the high levels of health that we could be. More and more people do not have the energy they need to get through the day while millions of others are suffering with painful, crippling diseases because they have violated basic health principles.
Many of their choices were made out of ignorance, and it is my vision and passion to make a dent in this mess. I hope to have many of you help with the process as this Web site becomes a major force for good and the alleviation of disease and suffering.
Related Articles:
High-Income Americans Opt Out of High-Cost Health Insurance Health Insurance Gaps Stress US Families US Drug Usage Explodes
High-Income Americans Opt Out of High-Cost Health Insurance
Health Insurance Gaps Stress US Families
US Drug Usage Explodes