“Consumers Aren’t Spending Even In a Booming Job Market”

[GreatGazoo]

3. One factor: the rising cost of healthcare is sucking every dime out of the economy

The US spends about 17% of GDP on healthcare. One economist estimates that when it gets to 20% the economy will collapse since no industrialized country has ever made it above that number.

The cost of healthcare effects insurance rates including liability insurance (car insurance). It also effect municipal tax rates and the access that local governments give taxpayers to use community properties they turn off fountains, swimming pools, close dog parks, etc to avoid liability or because their insurers make them do so in order to get coverage that they can afford.

We are already the sickest nation of the top 16 and it will get worse. We pay more for healthcare than any nation on earth and then 100,000+ American are killed every year by preventable drug interactions -- in other words, the 2nd leading cause of death in the USA is healthcare itself.

http://www.alternet.org/story/147318/100,000_americans_die_each_year_from_prescription_drugs,_while_pharma_companies_get_rich

Add to that 2 million bankruptcies per year cause by healthcare expenses:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148#.