Cost of US health exceeds the cost of food
How Much Does Healthcare Cost? Dec 2017
"The average worker must work more than twice as long to cover healthcare as to cover food costs."
Need to work 3 months of the year just to pay for health care
As a percentage of GDP or disposable income
- Sen. Grassley on Healthcare 2009 which has the following
- Gardening for health and peace 2010 has the following graph of food costs
Looking at the previous two charts, we see
~~#F00:||Year|Food as % of
Disposable income| Health care as
% of GDP|Cost of
Health care vs. food
1970 |14 %| 6 %|Health care = 0.4X of food
2009|10 %|16 %|Health care = 1.6X of food ||~~
The cross-over point was about 1990, when both were 12 %
Note: Disposable personal income = about 73% of GDP (average) for that time period Census Bureau
And, the cost of poor health is far more the than just cost of health care
- Hidden Costs of Poor Health April 2009
- On average, every $1 of medical and pharmacy costs is matched to $2.3 of health-related productivity costs.
- The True Cost of Poor Health Mayo Clinic PDF 2008
- discusses presenteeism — the cost of employees who are on the job but not fully functioning because of real illnesses and medical conditions, including asthma, seasonal allergies, arthritis, migraines, depression, back pain, gastrointestinal disorders and diabetes
- Presenteeism Wikipedia
- Workplace Health Promotion CDC
- Indirect costs of poor health including absenteeism, disability, or reduced work output may be several times higher than direct medical costs