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Health Care Costs Threaten American Businesses

rising health care costsRising health care costs may be putting American businesses at a disadvantage compared to firms overseas, according to a new study by the New America Foundation.

In the U.S. health care system, 60 percent of all residents are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. This may increase the risk that the United States will lose good jobs to companies in other countries.

U.S. firms spent twice as much on health care in 2005 as their foreign competitors. U.S. companies spent $2.38 per hour for every American worker making $18 an hour. In contrast, firms in Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France spent only 96 cents each hour for a worker making $20 per hour.

The wide cost difference between U.S. health costs and those overseas may threaten the nation’s ability to compete in the global marketplace, the study’s authors said.

The average worker contribution for family health insurance has also increased by a staggering 102 percent since 2000.

Sources:

Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola's Comments:

If you think you’re spending a lot on health care now, wait a few years. By 2016, it’s expected that health care costs will double to more than $4 trillion! And the 16 cents of every dollar that’s now spent on health care is going to rise to nearly 20 cents in the next 10 years.

Just about everyone, from businesses to individuals, is feeling the pinch, and it’s no wonder when you consider these outrageous facts about health care costs from the National Coalition on Health Care:
  • In 2007, $2.3 trillion, or $7,600 per person, was spent on health care.
  • Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.
  • Total health care spending represented 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), and is expected to increase to 20 percent by 2016.
  • For comparison, health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France.
  • Workers are now paying $1,400 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.
It truly is outrageous, and these costs really are causing some U.S. businesses to shift jobs overseas or just go out of business entirely.

Americans are even beginning to “outsource” their own health care to other countries, where they can get in a vacation and a medical procedure for less than the price of the procedure alone in the United States. It’s known as “medical tourism.”

In Taiwan, for example, citizens are completely covered for dental, maternity, prescription drugs, imaging tests, surgical procedures, and just about anything else for around $20 a month. So the discrepancies in cost are quite dramatic.

What’s the Solution to Lower Health Care Costs?

The authors of the New America Foundation report are calling for a new model of health care that:
  • Reforms the current insurance marketplace
  • Provides income-based subsidies
  • Is individual, rather than employer-based
Others are talking a lot about universal health care, yet simply giving everyone access to overpriced drugs and corporate hospitals will result in little more than more rising health care costs, and more people getting and staying sick.

More government involvement doesn’t hold the answer to the health care crisis. What is needed is more personal involvement -- your personal involvement -- in the form of a commitment to your own health.

If you carefully follow some basic health principles -- simple things like exercising, eating whole foods, sleeping enough, getting sun exposure, and reducing stress in your life -- you will drastically reduce your need for conventional medical care.

You could also carefully analyze newer health insurance options such as HRAs and HSAs if you live in the United States. The basic concept here is to provide protection against medical catastrophes, but to have a high deductible to lower your costs. If you stay healthy, the premium savings would more than pay for the higher deductible -- IF you ever need it.

And that is really the bottom line.

The more you take responsibility for your own health -- in the form of nurturing your body to prevent disease -- the less you need to rely on the “disease care” that passes for health care in the United States in the first place.


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Comment on This Article Community Comments (34)
 
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
This mayn't be a popular view, but I don't think it is the medical doctors' fault that we have the lousy habits (eating, exercise, rest, etcetera) that we have.  I think it is time for us to take personal responsibility for what we do as individuals & quit trying to blame others for we have done to ourselves.  We need to each as individuals educate ourselves on what is best for our health. How do we maintain cellular homestasis - that is keep our collection of cells working as optimally as possible?

How many people know that sodas are bad for them - yet continue to drink them? How many people know that an inactive lifestyle is bad for them, yet won't get off the couch? How many people know that rest is restorative for the body yet continually drive themselves past exhaustion? How many people know that vegetables are good for them, but lie to themselves that french fries & ketchup are two servings?

 
qualitygeek
Savvy User Savvy User, Joined On 10/2007
qualitygeek  
Replied

AcupuntureWorks
Novice User Novice User Joined On 4/2008
AcupuntureWorks  
 
Posted On May 31, 2008

It is easy to feel overly virtuous when you are young, fit, healthy and not addicted to bad food and lifestyle choices but consider this: Old age, sickness and death are inevitable, in differing degrees, for every single person on the planet, including yourself. Even if you make all the right choices there will come a time when something will give out on you. The fact is we all will need some medical care at some point in our lives and hopefully we will be savvy (and at this point lucky) enough to have access to quality, intelligent care. Yes, we need to be proactive in our health, but we also really need to change our medical system.



pbpace
Novice User Novice User Joined On 6/2006
pbpace  
 
Posted On Jun 03, 2008

Tom T,

Please take your nutty, kooky conspiracy theories and post them on moveon.org. Please stay on topic...the high cost of health care!



TonineGelardi
Novice User Novice User Joined On 5/2009
TonineGelardi  
 
Posted On May 17, 2009

Personal responsibility is the ONLY way for change to happen in our health care system. The first and most important step toward health is to ask "WHY?" do people know that sodas are bad for them and still keep drinking them?  Why do people, knowingly, do harmful things to their body? What is the underlying concept that creates emotions and actions for self care versus self neglect/abuse?  The fundamental idea is our view of the universe and life.  If we believe in an ordered universe and intelligent design, if we believe that life expresses from the INSIDE OUT with infinite wisdom, then we will also believe that, if we live within the laws of nature, we have the ability to build health.

On the other hand, if we believe in a random universe and that life is incapable of healing itself, we will look for short cuts and tricks; and we will fight nature.  We will feel that our health is determined by outside forces and that there is no internal power for health. We will not be emotionally motivated to invest in inner health --- because inner health is not a part of our view of the universe.  The knowledge that sodas and exhaustion, etc are bad for us are inconsistent pieces of information relative to our view of a random universe.

As we seek health education, this first and most critical step, examining our core beliefs, is usually overlooked.  However, it is our core beliefs that direct our decisions and create our emotional motivation.

I do place some blame with the pharmaceutical companies.  They hire the brightest minds to develop massive advertising campaigns telling people that reality doesn't deliver health, and drugs deliver relief.  Many people accept that health is unlikely and, at best, random. And, they wait til symptoms appear, and then seek relief rather than solutions. Our view of the universe is often a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I prefer to believe in an ordered universe where I am empowered to make a difference in my life.


 
 
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
If more doctors would speak out about the toxicity of the typical american diet, and push for change maybe health care costs would not be a problem.

 
bmc
Savvy User Savvy User, Joined On 2/2007
bmc  
Replied

seg
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 11/2006
seg  
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
Quite true but first we have to educate the supposed educated.....We need more guards to guard the current guards....And then there's Big Pharma who no ones want to tangle with - cept the few alternative/intergrated health care providers not forgetting you and me of course .....


bmc
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 2/2007
bmc  
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
seg, sad but true.

 
 
 
Posted On May 31, 2008

Hi! I'm new to this forum and wanted to comment on health care in Canada. My husband comes from the province of New Brunswick, from near the capital, Fredericton. Most of his family is still there. Gerry and I have been married for 32 years, and for all those 32 years I have been appalled at the quality of health care in that area. Many years ago, on one of our visits, we saw that my sister-in-law 's legs were very swollen. We insisted she see the doctor. Well, the doctor wanted blood tests, and my sister-in-law had to go to the hospital for that; she couldn't get an appointment in under two weeks. She has been tryiing to find the source of pain in her side for more than 2 years. She has to wait for months to get X-rays, more months for a CT scan, and even more for an MRI. And still no diagnosis. Doctors are leaving for more lucrative practices in the United States. Half the rooms in the hospital in Fredericton are closed, and the hospital is being run primarily by nurses. Many of the doctors who remain are not taking new patients, so people wait for 12 hours or more in the emergency room. I also saw a video about a man in -- I think -- Ontario who was told he had to wait something like four months for an MRI of his brain. He made his way to the United States to get an MRI right away. Good thing, too. Had he waited four months, he would have been dead of a brain tumor. Now, I realize that there are areas in this country that experience some of these problems, and I recognize that our medical system needs to be overhauled. However, I am in no way in favor of universal health care, certainly not government-run universal health care. Perhaps we should go back to the really olden days, when people paid doctors what they could afford -- maybe even chickens and apples.


 
Music7ed
Novice User Novice User, Joined On 5/2008
Music7ed  
 
 
 
Posted On May 31, 2008

I don't care for our systems either, but until each person takes full responsibility for their own health how can it change? We all know the average American does not exercise, eat whole foods, sleep enough, get sun exposure, or reduce stress in their lifes. The key is responsibility, education and prevention.

www.sharethecause.com/reducetoxinsnow


 
Jinny
Novice User Novice User, Joined On 6/2006
Jinny  
 
 
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
It's not health care - it's sickness care...

I'll make this recommendation again, read Paul Zane Pilzer's stuff - the man was/is a visionary....check his books out from a library, google him & read what is online, buy his books online or at a local brick-n-morter bookstore - just read his stuff...It will truly open your eyes about "healthcare" in America. 

 
qualitygeek
Savvy User Savvy User, Joined On 10/2007
qualitygeek  
Replied

qualitygeek
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 10/2007
qualitygeek  
 
Posted On May 13, 2008
I reference Pilzer's stuff frequently but in case you have not bothered to look him up because you've never heard of him from another source, there's a bit about Paul Zane Pilzer:



  • completed Lehigh University in three years

  • received his MBA from Wharton in 15 months at age 22

  • became Citibank's youngest officer at age 22

  • became Citibank's youngest vice president at age 25

  • appointed adjunct professor at New York University at age 24, where he taught for 21 consecutive years

  • in the past 30 years, started and/or taken public, five companies in the areas of software, education and healthcare

  • served as an appointed economic adviser in two presidential administrations

  • predicted & warned our unlistening elected representatives of the impending $200 billion savings and loan crisis years before official Washington was willing to listen

  • former commentator on National Public Radio and CNN

  • author of 8 best-selling books


graphite
Novice User Novice User Joined On 6/2007
graphite  
 
Posted On Jun 02, 2008

Good point qualitygeek. I've been saying for years that the term "healthcare" is misleading. It's a sales gimmick for the illinformed. What it should be called instead is sickcare, diseasecare, scarecare, or scamcare. Take your pick. Let the buyer beware........


 
 
 
 
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