Cost of U.S. health care slows to lowest rate in 50 years

High unemployment and shrinking wages appear to be having an effect on the rising costs of health care in the United States. In 2010, health care costs rose at a rate of 3.9 percent, which is just 0.1 percent above the 50-year record low of 2009.

The lower growth rate comes from fewer people having access to medical services either because they have lost their job and health insurance, or they can no longer afford co-pays and deductibles so they simply don't go to the doctor.

This highlights an obvious problem with the U.S. health care system that few politicians appear willing to talk about. Having health care tied to employment is a profoundly flawed system that hurts both consumers and employers.

If employers did not have to pay healthcare costs for their employees, it would lower their overall cost of doing business. It would also make it less expensive to hire more workers. Cheap labor, many believe, is the reason U.S. jobs are being shipped overseas.

Quality and efficiency are two other problems with America's expensive health care system. That may be due to the fact that the U.S. is the only civilized nation on earth that ties access to health care to corporate profits.

With the exception of government-run Medicare and Medicaid, private insurance companies exert the most influence over the cost of U.S. health care, through limits on services, and how much each individual must pay for insurance.

The results of a for-profit healthcare system is lower quality care that is rationed to only those who have employer-based insurance plans, or wealthy individuals who can afford to pay expensive private insurance company premiums.

"In Alameda County, a private hospital turned away a woman in labor because the hospital's computer showed that she didn't have insurance. Hours later, her baby was born dead in a county hospital," according to a Santa Clara University report.

The issue of U.S. health care reform has been at the heart of America's political debate since the Afforable Care Act was passed by the Obama Administration in 2009. The legislation, dubbed by Republicans as Obamacare, aims to level the playing field between insurance companies and consumers who have previously been unable to obtain healthcare for a variety of reasons.

Despite the fact that the cost of health care in America remains the highest in the world, "Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on health care, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system," according to a report cited in Reuters.

The greatest beneficiary of the low-quality U.S. health care system are the insurance and drug companies, who have been posting record high profits, despite America's worst recession in 70 years.