If This Were a Division, You'd Shut It Down Tomorrow - The Cost of Health Care to Double By 2017...
Hey dude... The light at the end of the tunnel? It's a freaking train, and it's coming to run you over....
Seriously, can there be a more desperate situation than the state of US Healthcare? The population is
aging, the mostly good capitalist society creates drug companies that create billion dollar markets out of vapor, and you are in the middle of the fray, trying to be the Daddy Warbucks of healthcare by providing medical and Rx to your workforce. That's what you're supposed to do as an employer, right?
Sure, that's been part of the employer role. But, it's getting ready to be very painful. From the Associated Press:
"By 2017, total health care spending will double to more than $4 trillion a year, accounting for one of every $5 the nation spends, the federal government projects.
The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation_ will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. Other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011."
That means total health-care spending in the year 2017 will average out to $13,101 per person. By contrast, that spending in 2006 worked out to an average of $7,026 per person.
WOW... 6.7% actually sounded OK to me, until I realized that compounding, which is good for my 401k, really hurts when it impacts the expense side of the P&L.
If it were a division, you'd shut it down tomorrow. But it's not...
