President Obama is right to focus on healthcare as part of the economic crisis. Critics of his initial healthcare proposals argue that his goals for healthcare "reform" are taking our emphasis off of the economy. This view is narrow-minded and short sighted. We cannot fix the economy without addressing healthcare. Dealing with healthcare is dealing with the economy as healthcare is one of the largest industries in the United States and accounts for an ever increasing cost for most major employers in the economy.
Job creation
Recently, much attention has centered on the bailout of the automotive industry, but healthcare is arguably more important to job retention and creation in our economy. If all of the big three automakers went out of business, doomsday scenarios forecast by the Center for Automotive research predict a loss of 1.7 to 3 million jobs.
Contrast this to the healthcare industry, which provided 14 million jobs in 2006 and is expected to create more US jobs than any other industry. Employment options in healthcare are diverse and available for workers with no college education, as well as for those with advanced degrees.
Macroeconomic impact
Healthcare impacts the life of every American. Our healthcare system affects jobs throughout our economy, especially since many Americans get private health insurance through their employers.
Rising healthcare costs are currently crippling our businesses and preventing people from getting access to necessary care. Such costs have forced employers to cut pay, layoff workers, and raise out-of-pocket costs paid by individual employees.
Importantly, the poor comparative performance by US automakers has also been attributed to higher healthcare costs in the United States. Starbucks reports paying more money on employee health than they do on coffee; GM spends more on health than they do on steel. When a car is produced in the United states, $1500 of the cost is attributed to healthcare, which far exceeds the expenses paid by auto producers in other countries.
Towards healthcare enhancement
Rather than pursuing healthcare "reform," the president's goals, and optimism are better termed "Healthcare Enhancement." By inviting a broad based coalition of Democrats, Republicans and leaders from all areas across healthcare to the White House, the President is setting the stage for genuine change.
Focusing on quality and investing in research will create jobs and save lives. These are not short-sighted ideas and such proposals would enhance rather than diminish our current healthcare options.
The economic and healthcare crises exist together and must be addressed as one. I am encouraged by stimulus spending that includes $6 billion for cancer research and $19 billion allocated towards a long overdue update of the information technology used in doctors' offices and hospitals. These are not pork nor earmark projects; they are investments in our health, in our economy, and in our future.
In 2008, total national health expenditures rose 6.9 percent -- two times the rate of inflation.
Total spending was $2.4 TRILLION in 2007.
Total health care spending represented 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
U.S. health care spending is expected to increase at similar levels for the next decade reaching $4.3 TRILLION in 2017, or 20 percent of GDP.
Great Britain: Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on health care: 8.3%
Japan: Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 8%
Germany:Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 10.7%
Taiwan: Percentage GDP spent on health care: 6.3%
Switzerland:Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 11.6%
In 2008, employer health insurance premiums increased by 5.0 percent " two times the rate of inflation.
The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,700. The annual premium for single coverage averaged over $4,700.2
Great Britain:
Average family premium: None; funded by taxation.
Co-payments: None for most services; some co-pays for dental care, eyeglasses and 5 percent of prescriptions. Young people and the elderly are exempt from all drug co-pays.
Japan:
Average family premium: $280 per month, with employers paying more than half.
Co-payments: 30 percent of the cost of a procedure, but the total amount paid in a month is capped according to income.
Germany:
Average family premium: $750 per month; premiums are pegged to patients' income.
Co-payments: 10 euros ($15) every three months; some patients, like pregnant women, are exempt.
Taiwan:
Average family premium: $650 per year for a family for four.
Co-payments: 20 percent of the cost of drugs, up to $6.50; up to $7 for outpatient care; $1.80 for dental and traditional Chinese medicine. There are exemptions for major diseases, childbirth, preventive services, and for the poor, veterans, and children.
Switzerland:
Average monthly family premium: $750, paid entirely by consumers; there are government subsidies for low-income citizens.
Co-payments: 10 percent of the cost of services, up to $420 per year
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
Global Finance magazine has just named the world's 50 safest banks 2009. Only 2 North American banks made the top twenty (both Canadian). Royal Bank of Canada is the only North American bank in the top ten. Way to go Canada! Healthcare is absolutely related to the economy. Thank you for this post Dr Klatsky.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104428/how-universal-health-care-changes-everything
Health care is a privledge and not a right. While the US spends Trillions to bomb innocent men, women and children becuase they live on top of Oil fields or in areas that Oil companies need pipe lines, the everyday working American can go to hell.
Americans could be lined up in the street dying of The Plaugue and you will not see any type of Nationalized Health Care System.
America is a war mongering nation. Health care is on the bottom of the list. In the US the priority will always be building more bombs while children go without even the most basic health care service.
Obama means well, but it will simply not happen. America is nothing more than Corpprate owned and operated nightmare.
The US spends about 16% of its GDP on health-care. Virtually every other country developed country spends no more than 10% of it's GDP for this purpose, and they still manage to cover everybody. So, if you forget the moral stuff for a moment, the US basically flushes 6% of it's GDP down a black hole every year.
Now what was the root cause of the economic downturn? Americans have, for years now, consumed about 6% more than they produce, and they've been borrowing the difference. That obviously couldn't last. However, by sheer coincidence, the amount they've been over-consuming, is more or less equal to the amount that's being wasted in the health-care system.
So while this analysis is a tad simplistic, it does illustrate the idea that controlling health-care costs is going to be essential to coming out of this recession. Obama is right. There will be no economic recovery without health-care reform.
Sickness is met with overcare - doctors nodding to their patients in the hospital and billing for hundreds of dollars, patently unnecessary x-rays and repeated (and frequently lost) tests, physical therpy for conditions that haven't even been diagnosed, and unbelievable expenditures on procedures that torture the last moments of the terminally ill.
We must learn that less is more; that invalidated study after study has proven that doctors know very little about preventing disease and that treatment need not always be heroic.
Health Care....
Ask yourself why?
Look at all the money we spend on medications...and those inflated prices aren't any fun either!
Life saving medicaton shouldn't cost so much as to prohibit LIFE!
Insurance is primarily a capitalist gambling scam where citizens and businesses are required by law to place bets against their self interests. Our current financial debacle had at it's core, credit default swaps (insurance) which were bets that financiers sold and traded, made against the unaffordable real estate loans pushed upon the uneducated populace.
It's all about greed.
Making a living by denying healthcare...is a Limbaugh thing!
There should be a commitment to serious reform that will bring costs in line with other countries. If per person health care costs in the United States were the same as in Canada, Germany or any of the other 30 countries that enjoy longer life expectancies than we do, the government would be facing long-run budget surpluses in the hundreds of trillions of dollars. The Peter Petersons of the world would have to find some other excuse for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and other programs they don't like."""""
There could be a national system for all, and if someone addiionally wants to get a private insurance plan to cover dental or other things, they also have that posibility. This is how it works in other countries.
Please, folks I implore you, before we talk about universal health care for those who only need minimal coverage to deal with minor injuries (mostly brought on by their own carelessness or stupidity) let's worry about those millions of men, women, and children who are born with cancer, lukemia, and any one of the dozen congenital birth defects like MS, MD, CP and Spina Bifida. When THOSE people are covered, and their long and painful lives are legitimized by the health care system and the people, THEN we can talk about the majority of people who only have to worry about minor injuries