How Meditation Could Help Solve the Healthcare Crisis

"Healthcare spending in the United States continues its upward climb, approaching $5 trillion annually in 2023. Employer-sponsored family plans now average $27,000 per year, placing mounting pressure on households and businesses. Yet despite this spending, the country's health outcomes remain far from world-leading. The latest OECD data show U.S. per-person spending is roughly twice the OECD average, with Switzerland and Germany trailing behind as the next highest spenders."

"While chronic disease remains a major driver of these costs, a quieter-and rapidly escalating-force is straining the system: mental-health challenges, burnout, and stress-related illness. These issues siphon hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy each year through lost productivity, absenteeism, disability claims, and increased medical use. Untreated mental illness among American workers alone is projected to cost $477.5 billion in 2024, and by 2040, the cumulative economic loss could approach $14 trillion."

"Major depressive disorder already imposes one of the heaviest burdens. In 2018, its economic impact reached $236 billion. Workplace productivity losses accounted for the largest share-and that share is growing. Burnout among clinicians further intensifies the financial toll. A 2019 study estimated that physician burnout costs the U.S. healthcare system $4.6 billion annually, primarily because of turnover and reduced clinical hours- roughly $7,600 per physician each year."

U.S. healthcare spending neared $5 trillion in 2023, with employer-sponsored family plans averaging $27,000 annually and per-person spending roughly double the OECD average. Chronic disease remains a major cost driver, while mental-health challenges, burnout, and stress-related illness are rapidly escalating and straining the system. Mental-health issues cause hundreds of billions in annual economic losses through lost productivity, absenteeism, disability claims, and increased medical use; untreated worker mental illness is projected to cost $477.5 billion in 2024 and almost $14 trillion cumulatively by 2040. Major depressive disorder and clinician burnout already impose substantial economic burdens, making prevention and population-level resilience essential, and highlighting meditation as a low-cost, evidence-backed but underused intervention.

Read at Psychology Today