Health care is free!

Aug. 8, 2012

By John Seiler

The Washington Post notes of Obamacare:

“Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law 28 months ago and largely upheld in June by the Supreme Court, it’s illegal for insurers to charge consumers a co-payment for a long list of health care services designed to prevent disease.”

It adds:

“They’re free.”

That’s right. Nobody pays for them.

Not only that. But the Post calculates:

“A 2010 study by Harvard University researchers, published in the journal Health Affairs,concluded that ‘medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs….’ “

Unfortunately, the Post doesn’t factor the ultimate implications of this. I will.

Health care in America costs 17 percent of our $15 trillion GDP, or $2.6 trillion a year. Now, if: “medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs.” Then: if we spend 0.8 trillion ($800 million) on new wellness programs, then the entire $2.6 trillion spent on health care will be erased will!

($2.6 trillion / $3.27 = $0.8 trillion.)

Put another way, if we spend $0.8 trillion on wellness, we’ll save $2.6 trillion. Net savings: $1.8 trillion. That money then could be used to end the $1.3 trillion annual U.S. deficit, with $500 million used to start paying down the $16 trillion federal debt.

And the best of it is: We’ll all get in shape, be as healthy as Olympic gold-medal winners, work harder and generate even more tax revenue for more programs to make us even healthier!