Healthcare and Jobs

For anyone who doubts the impact of health care costs on jobs and the ability for US corporations to compete on a global scale, here are some numbers and facts. The following comes from the Council on Foreign Relations’ report Healthcare Costs and U.S. Competitiveness.

• Factoring in costs borne by the government, the private sector, and individuals, the United States spends over $1.9 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School estimate the United States spends 44 percent more per capita than Switzerland, the country with the second highest expenditures, and 134 percent more than the median for member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
• These costs prompt fears that an increasing number of U.S. businesses will outsource jobs overseas or offshore business operations completely
• The United States spent 16 percent of its GDP in 2007 on health care, higher than any other developed nation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that number will rise to 25 percent by 2025 without changes to federal law
• Health premiums for workers have risen 114 percent in the last decade
• At 12 percent, health care is the most expensive benefit paid by U.S. employers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Healthcare experts agree the people with the most control over what drugs get prescribed and what procedures get done have little incentive to lower these costs (indeed, to the extent that they get paid by the procedure, their incentives are often quite the opposite). Likewise, patients often feel little need to control the costs of their own medical care if it is covered by insurance. The system bears the brunt of the excess, and employers make up the difference in the rates they pay.
• These ballooning dollar figures place a heavy burden on companies doing business in the United States and can put them at a substantial competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace

Some conservatives question why the government is tackling health care reform at a time of economic crisis.  What they’re not understanding is that it is because of the economic crisis that the system needs fixing now.

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