Health Care: Barrier to Hiring

A poll of CEOs of large US multinational corporations came out yesterday. The results are generally optimistic, and the media coverage mirrors this. But buried in the results is something that should give everyone pause:

Health-care costs retained the top spot on a list of domestic policy concerns, with 86 percent of CEOs calling them very important or the most important issue. Most predict benefit costs will rise further over the next year, and 42 percent called health-care costs a "major obstacle" to hiring.

(emphasis mine) Eli Lily CEO Sidney Taurel seperately expressed a similar concern.

Separately, Taurel, echoing the findings of a new survey of U.S. corporate leaders, agreed that the soaring cost of health care is the biggest single U.S. policy concern for the coming year and threatens the optimistic mood of American chief executives.

I've argued before that the skyrocketing cost of health care is a serious economic issue, as well as a philosophical and moral consideration. When the heads of nearly half of the US large companies consider the cost of providing health coverage to employees a barrier to hiring them, and that that concern alone could change the economic mood in the country, there is a problem.