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Americans spent an estimated $2.5 trillion to maintain our health in 2009, or roughly $8,000 per person. This is more than the gross domestic product (what is spent on everything) in every other country in the world except Japan, China, Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

Spiraling healthcare costs are on track to bankrupt America. Medicare will be insolvent by 2017 and is projected to generate a $37 trillion deficit. Increased healthcare costs are one more reason jobs flee America. And all this extra cost has given us very little return as most of the gain in life expectancy came during the first half of the 20th century due to improved sanitation and nutrition.

The cost of healthcare could be cut in half, but what do our politicians want to fix first? They want the most fraud-riddled, inefficient system—our government—to take over more of our care! They want to cover 47 million Americans without insurance rather than fix the cost of care for all 307 million Americans!

We can drive down costs to levels that existed before government decided to “fix healthcare” in 1965. This means we all have to change:

· Consumers must live healthier lives, manage their own care, and bear more of the direct cost of care. We must remember that, insured or not, we pay for healthcare through lower wages, higher prices, or higher taxes.
· We must find a way to live our last years without bankrupting our children, our grandchildren, and our neighbors.
· Lawyers can no longer be allowed to pillage our medical system for private gain.
· Providers must take a lower share of our national wealth. In return they would become less likely to be sued, go unpaid, or bear excessive overhead costs.
· Government must back away from managing care and focus on policing illegal behaviors and driving efficiency through shared knowledge.

Most important, government and industry leaders must push for change that is good for the country rather than for political contributors and lobbyists. Our founding fathers realized our republic would only survive if its leaders possessed public virtue. This crisis is another test of that virtue and I fear as Congress buys each vote with special interest gimmicks, our nation is further undermined.

70% of healthcare costs are lifestyle related! I just delivered my 4th consecutive annual sub 6% healthcare renewal to a company that adopted a meaningful difference in benefits based on weight targets.

Gooforyou Paul, just don’t acidentally get hit by a TRUCK while you’re standing there admiring your weight targets. Bassic health care is to cover emergencies.

This allows the market to determine the cost. The more certain procedures are required, physicians will counter by lowering costs.

An analysis of why costs in developing countries like India are significantly lower than then US for the exact same treatment:
http://hoothoothoot.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/obamacare-vs-indiacare/