According to this article by Dr. Henry E. Jones, the negative impact of high healthcare costs on the national economy of the U.S. could be far more than anyone thinks. The $1.4 trillion spent annually one healthcare costs represent 15 percent of the total gross domestic product. Per capita costs, at $4,662, are nearly double those of other countries.
But this expenditure gets the U.S. neither higher quality healthcare nor added safety. In fact, between 98,000 and 140,000 patients die in U.S. hospitals each year from accidental injuries, medication errors, and adverse drug reactions.
To root of the problems go all the way back to 1846, when 29 allopathic doctors met to establish what would become the American Medical Association. They wanted to establish a monopoly over health care in the United States. Their original goal was actually laudable -- to make medicine safer and better. But the end result was a system where innovations are quashed. Homeopaths, midwives, chiropractors, and internet prescribers have all been ruthlessly purged with neither scientific proof nor research data offered to discredit them. (When they did once try to show that obstetricians achieved a lower infant mortality rate than did midwives, the data showed that the reverse was true; they quickly abandoned this approach and returned buying lawmakers and writing nasty unsubstantiated accusations in their journals.)
Because of the influence of this monopoly, the United States has a government-enforced price floor -- but a free market price ceiling. Therefore, prices can go up, but not down. The competitiveness of American workers in the world market is being sacrificed to the medical monopoly.