Health Care Value Comparability Study

Business Roundtable has released the first annual Business Roundtable Health Care Value Comparability Study, which shows that the costs and performance of the U.S. health care system have put America's companies and workers at a significant competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.

"Health care costs are one of the top cost pressures facing American businesses today, inhibiting job creation and hurting America's ability to compete in global markets," said Harold McGraw III, Chairman of Business Roundtable and Chairman, President and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies. "This study helps us understand the relationship between spending, quality and competitiveness, while enabling us to track progress as we push forward with health care reform."

The report combines internationally reported measures covering both spending on, and the performance of, national health care systems to assign a value to the United States' health care system compared with important global competitors. On a weighted scale, the results show that the United States' workers and employers receive 23 percent less value from our health care system than the average of five leading economic competitors - Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France (the "G-5 group") - and 46 percent less value than the average of emerging competitors Brazil, India and China (the "BIC group").

"This study shows a significant health care value gap," said Ivan Seidenberg, Chair of Business Roundtable's Consumer Health and Retirement Initiative and Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications. "While, in many respects, the employer-based health care system in the United States is the best in the world - we have groundbreaking scientific advances, cutting-edge medical technology, and exceptional doctors and medical institutions - the business model supporting it doesn't meet Americans' needs. When we spend more to get less, we all lose - workers, employers and the government. The study points to a serious need for health care reform that puts customers in the center and uses the power of the market to lower costs, improve quality, create more consumer choice and expand accessibility."

The study also shows that, as a group, the G-5 countries spend approximately 63 cents for every dollar the United States spends on health care - yet the health of the U.S. workforce lags by 10 percent in a composite measure. The gap is even wider in relation to rising economic powers: the three BIC countries spend just 15 percent of what we spend on health care, yet the health of the U.S. workforce trails that of BIC countries by five percent.

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