I like to work with numbers to see if I can get better in sight into things like health care. Here is what I already know. The USA spends 17% of our GNP on health care right now and the projection is that when Obama care is at full speed, we will be spending as much as 25%. How much do you think that we can afford to spend and still have any kind of quality of life? The amount is not unlimited. Now, let's look at a few numbers.
I got most of these right off the Internet. The median household income is about $55,000 and has been going down since 2007. We are getting poorer. If the median is $55,000 and the distribution is a straight line down to zero, the average (4th grade math) $27,500 for the lower 50% of house holds. The other number is the size of households and that is about 2.75 people. If the USA were divided into two groups of equal numbers, 50% would be in this lower income group.
My next step is to see what kind of quality of life the people in this lower 50% would have if they had to pay their own bills. This is the way it is in most other countries who do not have as many high income families as the USA to pay their bills. Our total GNP is about $15 trillion and we have about 325 million people. If you just look at the average per person, the number comes out to $46,154. This is a lot different number than the median where the number was $55,000 per household of 2.75. That works out to only $20,000 per person. This is because smart, hard working and well educated people earn a lot more than the average person. Remember that 40% of our kids do not complete high school. Where is this going? Here is where.
If the average GNP per person is $46,154 and we now spend 17% on health care, that means the average person spends $7,846 on health care and it looks like the number will go up to as high as $11,538 with Obama care. This means that the average person in the lower 50% of our population will have to spend 58% of their total income to get the average quality of health care. By any measure we all know that is impossible. How about food and shelter? The cost for health care for a poor person is about the same as it is for a rich person.
We have at least three problems here. First, the total cost of health care as we know it. We can't afford to spend 17% of our GNP on health care. Canada spends 11% and they know it is going to bankrupt them and we are looking at 25%. Second, we have far too many of our people who do not pull their own weight. If you don't, at least, finish high school, you won't be able to pull your own weight. If you are fat and over weight, it is the same thing. If you are socially irresponsible in almost anyway, you will not be pulling your own weight. We have too many poor people and it is mostly their own fault. I only accept mental retardation or physical handicap as a good reason for being poor. Third, we don't have enough rich people to free load off of. Many of our smart people are seduced to go into professions that do not produce any real wealth. We need more true wealth producers.
Now, look at the three problem areas above and ask if you see anything going on that will address anyone of them? I don't. We are doing nothing to bring down the cost of health care. We are allowing more people to live well enough while being poor without any incentive to work their way out. We are not rewarding people who want to create more wealth. We are actually penalizing them. As I have stated in the past, most problems are simple and turn on just a few points. Health care is just that biggest weight in the boat right now and it will sink the boat if nothing is done.
