Businesses: Health care costs stymie expansion

[dflprincess]

From yesterday's Minneapolis Star Tribune. This is from a survey done by Health Partners, one of the major insurers (non profit) in Minnesota

http://www.startribune.com/business/83690202.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

What's the biggest hurdle to growth for businesses today?

Clue: It's not the economy.

For about 180 employers polled in a survey commissioned by Health Partners, health care costs for employees emerged as the most-common obstacle to business expansion, more than the economy itself, access to funding or flaccid consumer demand.

Twenty-one percent of employers cited affordable health care as an obstacle to expansion, with government regulations next (12 percent), followed the by economy (11 percent). Global competition trailed at 5 percent.

Separately, the government said this week that health care consumed a record 17.3 percent of all spending in the U.S. economy last year -- roughly $2.5 trillion.

According to the Health Partners survey, employee lifestyle was a big reason costs went up. Seventy-one percent of employers said their workers had poor health habits -- not exercising enough, not eating enough fruits and vegetables, smoking.

Employers are resorting to a variety of tactics to lighten their health costs. About 60 percent are increasing employees' share of costs through higher premiums, co-pays or deductibles. But that is, at best, a temporary measure. Some employers seemed to realize they've already shifted costs to the point where employees are avoiding the doctor. Thirty-two percent of employers said they were interested in reducing financial barriers for workers who need care.

Of course, this all begs the questions, why aren't other businesses screaming for real reform and why is the current government willing to sacrifice jobs, other businesses and the health of its citizens to one corrupt industry?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

1. I was recently sitting in a board room in Toulouse France

Our client was a French company planning to launch an entire US operation that would have employed four hundred people.

When the boys in Toulouse got a look at the costs of providing the benefits necessary to retain a professional workforce they had a conniption and in five minutes flat what would have been _________ of America Ltd, which would have established itself in San Diego became half a dozen regional sales offices with a total of about forty employees - all commissioned salesmen and secretaries.

I have seen this time and time again, it is a huge impediment to attracting international investment when costs that are low or non-existent elsewhere are exorbitant here.

[timeforpeace]

2. Mandates should fix that.

[theothersnippywshrub]

3. It also is why real wages and salaries declined over the last 10 years, but real total compensation

went up. The difference was the increased cost of health care benefits. And economic growth becomes difficult when real wages and salaries decline in an economy where two-thirds of the growth comes from consumer spending. Some of the best reasons for health care reform are based on economic growth.