I'll bet that very few of you knew that "For each mid-size car DaimlerChrysler AG builds at one of its U.S. plants, the company pays about $1,300 to cover employee health care costs--more than twice the cost of the sheet metal in the vehicle." The $2 trillion that the United States will spend on health care this year is causing nearly all U.S. businesses to be at a distinct disadvantage when competing internationally. That is why so many companies outsource overseas. At mercola.com we are able to reduce our programming fees by 75 percent by hiring six programmers in Poland to do the bulk of our programming.
This is one of the reasons that the United States has lost nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs since July 2001, with 43 consecutive months of manufacturing-employment decline, from about 17.3 million jobs to about 14.3 million in February 2004. High health care costs have created a competitive gap that's driving investment decisions away from the United States.
I am absolutely delighted that this is occurring though as it will be hard economic realities that "force" the transition to a natural health care-based system that addresses the underlying cause of disease rather than treat the symptoms with expensive and unnecessary drugs and surgeries.
Washington Post March 6, 2004 Page E01