Reality check about ballooning medical costs?

[WhiskeyGirl]

How the US health care debate benefits Britain
The result of President Obama's attempt at reform may be an international reality check about ballooning costs

Britain should be among the beneficiaries because few of its politicians are willing publicly to admit the unsustainable nature of the present system. The latest example was Labour's rejection this month of a recommendation by management consultants McKinsey to cut the NHS workforce by 137,000 to save £20 billion over the next five years.

...A confidential insurance industry report noted drug costs escalating at 40 per cent a year.

Two weeks ago, the World Economic Forum, supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development and Mercer, a business consultancy, underlined these gloomy predictions. They said that even after the effects of the credit crunch had passed, no government would be able to cope with the demands posed by a greying population.

"Neither governments nor employers have the money or resources to tackle this problem into the foreseeable future," they said in a report, Reforming Pensions and Health care in a Rapidly Ageing World.

"So far the tendency has been to duck the issue – governments passing it on to employers and employers passing it to individual employees," it said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/6201453/How-the-US-health-care-debate-benefits-Britain.html

Hmmm...tax on payroll?