ironically, the burden of health care has become unsustainable for the free market to bear.
According to Micah Weinberg, a researcher and expert on health care reform for the nonpartisan New America Foundation, âAmerican businessesâlarge and smallâare being hamstrung by soaring health care costs that are more than twice those of foreign competitors.â Twice? America can compete in a global economy, but the days have long passed when we could afford to spot every competitor that many points.
As far back as 2005 General Motors was spending more on health care costs (over $1,500) per car than on steel! Thatâs an unreal advantage to foreign carmakers. Didnât anyone see this coming?
The brilliant Bill Clinton, who has an uncanny way of cutting to the heart of the issue, told Jon Meacham in a 2009 Newsweek interview that the difference between what the United States spends in GDP (17 percent) on health care and what other industrialized nations spend, the average 6 percent difference, amounts to giving them a $900 billion competitive advantage!
It should be so simple, yet some conservatives are so dug into their dogma that they canât see that the policies they support are the ones killing the free market and the independent businesses they claim to revere.
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM CREATES NEGATIVE SOCIALIST OUTCOMES
Between 2000 and 2007, the average workerâs insurance premiums grew twice as fast as his or her wages. During the same time frame, according to Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, premiums for employer-sponsored insurance jumped 98 percentâfour times faster than wages.
This employee-based system has led to workers chasing benefits from job to job, not necessarily doing what they love or are particularly good at. Common sense tells us that this is no way for any society to thrive. Think about it. Poorly regulated capitalism has forced Americans into jobs for which they are ill suited, which is one of the great fears people have of socialism. Paradoxically, if we free workers from taking jobs based on whether or not that job provides health care, we strengthen capitalism because we encourage people to do what they are best suited to do.
CAREENING TOWARD INSOLVENCY
âYou canât fix the economy without fixing health care,â President Obama has said. While I have been critical of the White House strategy on health care reform, I do understand what an incredibly difficult lift this is. Had he not inherited such a wretched economy and massive debt, President Obama could have passed much more substantial legislation because he would have had the money in the bank to make the initial investments. Instead, he had to settle for reforms that were immediately budget neutral or that promised savings. Had Bush II been held to that standard,Medicare Part D, which Republicans passed despite its $1.2 trillion price tag (over ten years), would have been sunk. As it was, the unfunded plan floated away in a sea of red ink. Because Bush wrote all those hot checks then, average American families are paying the price now.
Before the Democrats took on health care reform, the New America Foundation projected that health insurance in 2016 could cost $20,400 annually for a family. Some will say if we are paying anything less than that in 2016, it is a victory. If so, itâs a small victory, and I donât plan any kind of celebration in the end zone. The tiresome term used during the health care debate was that proponents wanted to âbend the curveâ on costsâin other words, tamp down the pace of the increases.
The reality is, even with the consumer protections in any new health care legislation, there just isnât enough leverage to bring about any kind of immediate relief for most people. Families will probably still see their costs riseâbut at a slower rate than had this runaway train been allowed to keep rolling. Under the
According to Micah Weinberg, a researcher and expert on health care reform for the nonpartisan New America Foundation, âAmerican businessesâlarge and smallâare being hamstrung by soaring health care costs that are more than twice those of foreign competitors.â Twice? America can compete in a global economy, but the days have long passed when we could afford to spot every competitor that many points.
As far back as 2005 General Motors was spending more on health care costs (over $1,500) per car than on steel! Thatâs an unreal advantage to foreign carmakers. Didnât anyone see this coming?
The brilliant Bill Clinton, who has an uncanny way of cutting to the heart of the issue, told Jon Meacham in a 2009 Newsweek interview that the difference between what the United States spends in GDP (17 percent) on health care and what other industrialized nations spend, the average 6 percent difference, amounts to giving them a $900 billion competitive advantage!
It should be so simple, yet some conservatives are so dug into their dogma that they canât see that the policies they support are the ones killing the free market and the independent businesses they claim to revere.
UNCHECKED CAPITALISM CREATES NEGATIVE SOCIALIST OUTCOMES
Between 2000 and 2007, the average workerâs insurance premiums grew twice as fast as his or her wages. During the same time frame, according to Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, premiums for employer-sponsored insurance jumped 98 percentâfour times faster than wages.
This employee-based system has led to workers chasing benefits from job to job, not necessarily doing what they love or are particularly good at. Common sense tells us that this is no way for any society to thrive. Think about it. Poorly regulated capitalism has forced Americans into jobs for which they are ill suited, which is one of the great fears people have of socialism. Paradoxically, if we free workers from taking jobs based on whether or not that job provides health care, we strengthen capitalism because we encourage people to do what they are best suited to do.
CAREENING TOWARD INSOLVENCY
âYou canât fix the economy without fixing health care,â President Obama has said. While I have been critical of the White House strategy on health care reform, I do understand what an incredibly difficult lift this is. Had he not inherited such a wretched economy and massive debt, President Obama could have passed much more substantial legislation because he would have had the money in the bank to make the initial investments. Instead, he had to settle for reforms that were immediately budget neutral or that promised savings. Had Bush II been held to that standard,Medicare Part D, which Republicans passed despite its $1.2 trillion price tag (over ten years), would have been sunk. As it was, the unfunded plan floated away in a sea of red ink. Because Bush wrote all those hot checks then, average American families are paying the price now.
Before the Democrats took on health care reform, the New America Foundation projected that health insurance in 2016 could cost $20,400 annually for a family. Some will say if we are paying anything less than that in 2016, it is a victory. If so, itâs a small victory, and I donât plan any kind of celebration in the end zone. The tiresome term used during the health care debate was that proponents wanted to âbend the curveâ on costsâin other words, tamp down the pace of the increases.
The reality is, even with the consumer protections in any new health care legislation, there just isnât enough leverage to bring about any kind of immediate relief for most people. Families will probably still see their costs riseâbut at a slower rate than had this runaway train been allowed to keep rolling. Under the
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