Healthcare costs

Healthcare Is Killing Us

#GMJ

High healthcare costs are dooming job creation, badly needed hope, and employee engagement, says Gallup's chairman

A GMJ Q&A with Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup and author of The Coming obs War

Americans have been concerned about the rising cost of healthcare for some time, but the situation may be even more dangerous than we think. As Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton writes in The Coming Jobs War: "It is impossible for the U.S. to win the race for new good jobs while the country continues its failed strategies for healthcare. Astronomical healthcare costs end America's race to re-win the future. The United States has to fix this or it shuts off the energy switch to entrepreneurship and innovation. If this happens, everything else ceases to matter."

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the U.S. about $200 billion a year. That's tiny compared to healthcare costs.

Part of the problem is that money spent on healthcare drains businesses of badly needed capital. But another part is that a sickly population is a sluggish population -- too sluggish to be engaged, customer-creating employees or to have hope./.../