National Health Care – NOW

The auto industry is in crisis and appears unable to escape from the calamitous currents swirling around it. Blame can be found aplenty: greedy CEO and executive ranks, unconscious boards of directors, negligence in management job performance, worker intransigence, resistance to change, competition, government inaction.....the list is endless.

What really seems inescapable is the horrendous negative effect that health care costs have on the automaker's competitive positions.

'A constant refrain from the auto companies is that the soaring cost of health care is crushing their bottom line. GM wails loudly that covering their autoworkers and retirees adds $1,500 to the cost of each car. The only answer, they say, is to slash or even eliminate this protection for working families. But wait -- before we callously agree to yank the health-care rug out from under the middle class, let's consider fundamentally reforming our bloated, bureaucratic, exorbitantly expensive, inadequate and unjust health-care system. Again, check the competition: Japan has a national health program that doesn't leave its population dependent on whether an employer wants to or can afford to cover employees. No matter what their job is, the Japanese people have the security of health coverage. Toyota's workers enjoy health care without the cost being added to the price of the cars they make.

With a national health program for America, not only would GM improve its competitiveness by some $1,500 per car, but our nation would also be made stronger by replacing the inefficiencies and greed of the massive corporate structure (insurance giants, HMOs, drug peddlers, etc.) separating patients from doctors. America spends far more per person on health care than do Japan and other countries with a national plan -- and we get lower quality care.

It's time for the auto bosses to show leadership. Rather than retreating on the social contract, they should use their political and media clout to advance a national health-care program that'll truly be good for the country -- and for General Motors.'
Posted on The Human Stain