Health Costs Put U.S. Firms at Competitive Disadvantage
May 7, 2008 -- As a percentage of payroll, the employer cost of health benefits has exploded over the past few decades. Employer health costs for manufacturing firms in the United States, $2.38 per worker per hour, were much higher than the foreign trade-weighted average of $0.96 per worker per hour in 2005. Employer health costs make the United States less competitive than it could otherwise be.
A new model for health care that reforms the current insurance marketplace, provides income-based subsidies, and that is individual--rather than employer--based would enable us to finance our 21st-century health system in a more sustainable and competitive way.
For the full text of the policy paper, please click here. A shorter issue brief outlining the employer health care burden is also included here.
About Us
The crisis in America’s health care system stems from three primary causes: spiraling costs; highly uneven quality; and inequitable access to care that leaves 47 million Americans uninsured. The Health Policy Program works at the national level and in California to achieve fully portable health insurance to all Americans while raising the average quality of care and lowering the rate of cost growth. More specifically, the Program promotes a mandatory, citizen-based approach to health insurance that, combined with credible cost containment measures, can ensure universal coverage and enhance America’s long-term economic and social well-being.
A more-detailed program description is available here.
Be sure to visit our New Health Dialogue blog.
Articles
| Article | Date |
|---|---|
| Making Practices Perfect | August 26, 2008 |
| Senators Don't Lead Such Charmed Lives | July 1, 2008 |
| Crossroads in Quality | May 13, 2008 |
| The Long Road To Health Reform Requires Bipartisan Leadership | May 13, 2008 |
| The New Specialty In Cancer Care | April 2, 2008 |
| Why the Budget Gap Shouldn't Derail Health Care Reform | January 15, 2008 |
| On the Moral Superiority Of a Single-Payer System | January 1, 2008 |
| John Chafee’s Work for Health Reform | September 10, 2007 |
| On California's Quest for Health Reform | August 30, 2007 |
| IHS Reforms Long Overdue | August 27, 2007 |
Policy Papers
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| Employer Health Costs In a Global Economy | May 2008 |
| Cost Of Failure | March 2008 |
| Lessons From California's Health Reform Efforts For the National Debate | March 2008 |
| Who Receives Uncompensated Care? | March 2008 |
| Health Care Reporting Guide for Journalists | March 2008 |
| What Hill Staff Should Know About Health Care | March 2008 |
| Myths About the Individual Mandate | February 2008 |
| Why Does Health Insurance Matter? | February 2008 |
| Why the State's Budget Gap Shouldn't Derail Health Care Reform | January 2008 |
| Who Are The Uninsured? | December 2007 |
Events
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| America's Health Care Debacle | July 30, 2008 |
| Making Medicare Sustainable | July 23, 2008 |
| Employer Health Costs in a Global Economy | May 9, 2008 |
| California Health Reform: Lessons for the Nation | March 7, 2008 |
| The Next Era of American Politics | February 29, 2008 |
| Health Insurance: What Should Everyone Be Covered For? | November 2, 2007 |
| Overtreated (Postponed) | October 18, 2007 |
| Smarter Tax Treatment of Health Insurance | July 13, 2007 |
| California Event: Ensuring Seamless Insurance Coverage For All | July 9, 2007 |
| Best Care Anywhere | May 4, 2007 |
Press
Testimony
Program Director Len Nichols is regularly asked to testify before Congress on health policy matters. For the full texts of his prepared testimony, please see the links below:Recent Presentations:
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American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) 2008 National Policy Forum
- Financing Health Care Reform in New Jersey: Can New Jersey Afford it? Can New Jersey Afford to do Without It?
Staff
Program Staff
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Len Nichols
Director, Health Policy Program -
Julie Barnes
Deputy Director, Health Policy Program -
Sarah Axeen
Program Associate, Health Policy Program -
Elizabeth Carpenter
Senior Program Associate and Congressional Liaison, Health Policy Program -
Guy Clifton
Senior Research Fellow, Health Policy Program -
Tom Emswiler
Senior Program Associate and Congressional Liaison, Health Policy Program -
Joanne Kenen
Senior Writer, Health Policy Program -
Paul Testa
Program Associate, Health Policy Program -
Jeannette Warren
Executive Assistant, Health Policy Program
Click on any name above for additional information.
Nichols Says Bipartisanship, Cost, Coverage, and Quality Critical to Health Reform Debate in Health Affairs
In two new articles released by Health Affairs, New America Health Policy Program Director, Len Nichols, Ph.D., emphasizes the importance of approaching health reform in a bipartisan way and comprehensively addressing the issues of cost, coverage, and quality.
In “The Long Road To Health Reform Requires Bipartisan Leadership,” Nichols and co-authors Christine Ferguson, and Elizabeth Fowler, conclude that a three-pronged strategy that makes health reform a priority, encourages bipartisan leadership, and engages Congress in the legislative details will help ensure efforts to reform our nation’s health system are successful.
Quality improvement, cost containment, and coverage expansion are “intricately woven goals,” according to Nichols and his co-authors in, “Crossroads in Quality: Successful reform must address coverage, costs, and quality at the same time.” Nichols and the Crossroads in Quality Group argue that in order to improve the quality of care that patients receive we need to tie physician payment reform to a broad-base of information about what works and what doesn’t work in our health system.
Free access to both articles is available through the links below.
"The Long Road To Health Reform Requires Bipartisan Leadership" and "Crossroads in Quality"
