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Skyrocketing health care costs make U.S. employers non-competitive in the global marketplace

Articles from Umar Hafeez. All about Insurance.
Skyrocketing health insurance costs are heavily impacting employers in the United States. Now, for the first time, medical benefits to employees has become the most expensive benefit paid by employers, according to a new report issued by the Employment Policy Foundation. The cost of health care for employers has jumped 12.4% between 2002 and 2003. That's about 5 times higher than inflation, and it is threatening the competitiveness of American corporations and the private sector. The Foundation also reported that employers spent $331 billion last year for health insurance for employees. That's a 50% increase since 1998. This comes out to an average of $3.80 per hour for each worker who participated in health insurance coverage.

If these numbers aren't alarming to you, they should be. In America today, we're seeing a huge number of jobs moving offshore to countries like India, China, Russia and Mexico. Part of the reason there is so much offshoring going on is because U.S. businesses can no longer remain cost-competitive in the global marketplace due to these burdensome health care costs. To a person who lives in the United States, it often seems like the kind of money we pay for health insurance in this country must be similar to what's paid in other countries around the world, but in fact, this is a myth. Other countries around the world pay far less than we pay for health care, and they are able to deliver health care to their citizens even though they are spending only a fraction of what we are spending here in the United States.

Let me put some real figures to this so you can see an example of how it works. In the United States, and individual could easily pay $400-$500 a month for health insurance coverage. Even if they aren't paying it out of their pocket, their employer is picking up the tab and effectively paying that amount for them. If you look at a country like Taiwan, however, which has a national health care system, each individual pays an average of around $20 per month for full health care coverage. That $20 a month includes maternity, dental, vision, and all medical visits. It even helps cover prescription drug costs, which are dramatically lower in Taiwan than they are in the United States. Taiwan citizens receive care that's nearly as good as the care we receive in the United States, and yet they are paying 1/20th of the costs that we are paying here in the United States.

The myth that the United States has the best health care system in the world has long been shattered. We don't have the best health care in the world -- we have the most overpriced health care system in the world. And frankly, it's not even a health care system -- it's a disease care system. But the bigger question in all of this is: how can people in Taiwan receive full health care coverage for $20 a month, while in the United States, we are being charged $500 a month for similar coverage? The answer is rather complex, but here are the primary reasons why:

Number one, in the United States we are paying outrageous costs for prescription drugs due to the monopoly drug market. The pharmaceutical industry and the FDA are both working hard to limit Americans' access to prescription drugs from Canada and other countries that would be available at far lower cost. They want to make sure that Americans buy their prescription drugs from monopoly-controlled sources in the United States, where prices can be hiked up to practically any level in order to enrich the pockets and the profits of pharmaceutical companies. This is one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated on the American people, and it is fully supported by the Bush administration and federal regulators at the FDA. Many drugs are marked up 10,000% or more over the cost of their raw ingredients, and that's why people can buy such drugs at far lower prices by going to Canada or visiting online pharmacies where the very same drugs can be purchased at a fraction of the cost you might be charged at U.S. pharmacies like Walgreens.

The second reason health care costs are so high in the United States is because our system of health care is extremely inefficient. It has multiple levels of bureaucracy. There are mountains of paperwork that must be filled out by doctors in order to get paid for the work they've performed on patients. Likewise, patients have to fill out reams of paperwork to apply for programs like the Medicare discount drug cards or even private health insurance. Employers also have a tremendous burden here: they are filling out an endless stream of paperwork to apply for health insurance for their employees and then to maintain that health insurance each year.

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