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How to make health care more affordable:

1. Increase competition to reduce costs and prices through efficiencies, which may increase profits.

2. Shift money throughout the economy and into health care.

The goal should be more health care, either through efficiencies or less of everything else. More health care will not materialize out of thin air.

An alternative is less health care, e.g. through taxing some and subsidizing others.

Doctors Pay:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/

The Day After
Posted by Alan Orfi
Published: March 23, 2010

As a business owner with 28 employees, I've had much to contemplate after the passage of the "historic" bill. I cannot possibly provide health insurance to my workers as my payroll exceeds 55 percent of total revenue. I consulted with my crew leaders and have given them the choice of a 12 percent pay cut or we must eventually release three men. Our $1.2 million payroll translates to around $100,000 in annual penalties added to our tax burden because we cannot afford to provide health insurance. We have decided to proceed with firing three men and will do so within the next few months. We will take shortcuts on the service for our customers to somehow make up for their loss. Our business will survive this setback. I'm sure the three men who will lose their jobs as a direct result of this bill will be comforted in knowing they now have health insurance.

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/03/23/the-day-after.php

Anonymous said...
"I cannot possibly provide health insurance to my workers as my payroll exceeds 55 percent of total revenue."

I'm in the same boat, but my revenue is a function of competition, my competiton also keeps costs low by not offering healthcare.

If we all raise our prices to cover the costs of health insurance we still have equal competition, and I am still in business.

However, at higher prices we can each expect to sell a little less. and that will result in fewer workers, or they can trade some pay for benefits.

PeakTrader said...
Anon, it seems, some U.S. firms, and their domestic competitors, will find it more profitable to offshore more jobs than pay for health care insurance.

Anonymous II said...
Our Constituion is based on the idea we have a right to life, and presumably that means we all have an equal right to life, for the equal protetion of which we have instituted government, which must be paid for.

Anonymous said...
"Anon, it seems, some U.S. firms, and their domestic competitors, will find it more profitable to offshore more jobs than pay for health care insurance."

Absolutely, same as with environmental regulations, which are allegedly based on health considerations.

Of course, that choice is would exclude the other industrialized nations which already require/pay for health care, except to the extent that those places already cost less thaqn the US.

[Some] US companies voluntarily pay for health insurance. I do not know of any of them that have voluntarily left the US to avoid those costs or get similar benefits at a lower cost.

A third of the US economy is government, muchof which is outsourced to business. Much of the rest is tied to the land, housing, minerals, logging, farming; or to services to those groups.

That leaves only those manufacturors who think they can locate elsewhere and still sell here.

I believe your argument has some truth to it, but does not paint the whole picture.

PeakTrader said...
Anon, more jobs can be offshored than you may believe:

If work is highly repetitive (accounting)

If work is predictable and well defined (customer service)

If work can be broken down into small manageable projects (software development)

If work can be turned into a routine (Tele-marketing)

Proximity to the end customer is not important (phone based tech support of consumer products)

If end customer has already moved offshore (semiconductor sales)

PeakTrader said...
Anon II, your argument using equal protection is nonsense, because health care is not a right.

Government not only spends more of our money than it takes, it spends it inefficiently, unlike individuals, households, and private firms.

I would argue government has taken away your rights, because it squandered your future.

Also, what business does Congress have in micromanaging an economy? It doesn't understand economics.