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Bernie's Universal Health Care Lets US Businesses Compete (Would've prevented GM's crisis)
Last edited Wed Mar 9, 2016, 02:34 PM - Edit history (1)
If we had had universal health care, maybe GM would not have been near bankruptcy in the 1st placeEvery year the cost of retired workers' health care diverted billions of dollars from developing new models and added $1,400 to the cost of each car compared with those made in Asian and European transplants.
http://www.economist.com/node/13782942
there were a LOT of reasons for GM's near bankruptcy, not least the foreign transplants in the non-union southern right to work states.
But having to pay employee and pensioner health care was certainly a huge reason
The Case for Universal Health Care:
by Katherine Swartz, Harvard School of Public Health
Since 2000, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have risen by an average of 73%. For small firms, they’ve more than doubled. This rapid run-up in costs, plus pressures from an increasingly globalized economy, is causing firms of all sizes to pull back from offering health benefits. In 2000, 67% of nonelderly Americans had employer-sponsored health insurance. Just 63% do today.
Large companies increasingly hire workers on a contingency basis through contract houses, temp agencies, or contracts with self-employed people. This allows companies to reduce the number of workers with benefits. Small firms have always faced higher premiums per person than large firms and so have been far less likely to offer health coverage. Since many are new, they feel especially reluctant to provide a fringe benefit that’s more than doubled in cost in just the last six years.
Moreover, many startups exist as virtual companies: They’re groups of self-employed associates, rather than employees. This means they must find health insurance on their own, which costs even more than employer-group coverage.
For 20 years, the services sector, where small firms are the norm, has generated employment growth in the U.S. This, plus employer resistance to rising premiums, has transformed who’s uninsured. Today, almost 60% of the U.S.’s 46 million uninsured are 19 to 45 years old. Significantly, a quarter of all 25- to 34-year-olds and one-fifth of all 35- to 44-year-olds are uninsured. Both those figures have doubled in the last 25 years.
snip
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/03/universal_health_care_no_sick_joke.html
by Katherine Swartz, Harvard School of Public Health
Since 2000, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have risen by an average of 73%. For small firms, they’ve more than doubled. This rapid run-up in costs, plus pressures from an increasingly globalized economy, is causing firms of all sizes to pull back from offering health benefits. In 2000, 67% of nonelderly Americans had employer-sponsored health insurance. Just 63% do today.
Large companies increasingly hire workers on a contingency basis through contract houses, temp agencies, or contracts with self-employed people. This allows companies to reduce the number of workers with benefits. Small firms have always faced higher premiums per person than large firms and so have been far less likely to offer health coverage. Since many are new, they feel especially reluctant to provide a fringe benefit that’s more than doubled in cost in just the last six years.
Moreover, many startups exist as virtual companies: They’re groups of self-employed associates, rather than employees. This means they must find health insurance on their own, which costs even more than employer-group coverage.
For 20 years, the services sector, where small firms are the norm, has generated employment growth in the U.S. This, plus employer resistance to rising premiums, has transformed who’s uninsured. Today, almost 60% of the U.S.’s 46 million uninsured are 19 to 45 years old. Significantly, a quarter of all 25- to 34-year-olds and one-fifth of all 35- to 44-year-olds are uninsured. Both those figures have doubled in the last 25 years.
snip
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/03/universal_health_care_no_sick_joke.html
5 Arguments Democrats Should Be Making About Universal Health Care:
snip
2. It’s pro-business.
Our current healthcare system is bad for businesses large and small. It’s bad for doctors, it’s bad for patients. The only business it’s good for is the health insurance business. How the GOP, a party that presumes to be pro-business, could support it so staunchly and reflexively baffles the mind.
Founded on the odd mandate that employers should spring for health care, our current system puts a strangehold on small business, the lifeblood of American innovation and ingenuity. How many would-be entrepreneurs decide not to start up a new business because of concerns about health care expenses? How many existing small businesses are not hiring more workers because of concerns about health care expenses?
And it’s not just small companies. Our current healthcare system almost brought down General Motors, long considered the bluest of blue-chip American companies, and one of the biggest corporations in the country.
snip
5. Government is the solution, not the problem.
.... The only force big enough to combat the juggernaut that is the health insurance companies is the federal government. Period. In this fight, you’re either with the government (that is, the people) or the corporations.....
snip
http://www.theweeklings.com/golear/2012/05/29/five-arguments-for-universal-health-care-democrats-should-be-making/
snip
2. It’s pro-business.
Our current healthcare system is bad for businesses large and small. It’s bad for doctors, it’s bad for patients. The only business it’s good for is the health insurance business. How the GOP, a party that presumes to be pro-business, could support it so staunchly and reflexively baffles the mind.
Founded on the odd mandate that employers should spring for health care, our current system puts a strangehold on small business, the lifeblood of American innovation and ingenuity. How many would-be entrepreneurs decide not to start up a new business because of concerns about health care expenses? How many existing small businesses are not hiring more workers because of concerns about health care expenses?
And it’s not just small companies. Our current healthcare system almost brought down General Motors, long considered the bluest of blue-chip American companies, and one of the biggest corporations in the country.
snip
5. Government is the solution, not the problem.
.... The only force big enough to combat the juggernaut that is the health insurance companies is the federal government. Period. In this fight, you’re either with the government (that is, the people) or the corporations.....
snip
http://www.theweeklings.com/golear/2012/05/29/five-arguments-for-universal-health-care-democrats-should-be-making/
On another note, the Cadillac tax is looming on the horizon; it was delayed until well after the election.
Supporters of the tax claim it will hit only “extensive union plans” or “very rich plans,” says James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, a member of an anti-Cadillac-tax advocacy group.
“But the reality of it is: It’s going to affect plans that are expensive, not necessarily the ones that are the most comprehensive.” Advocates like Klein contend that some plans are pricey through “no fault” of insurance-plan sponsors or the workers who have them; cohorts with more ill, disabled, or older workers often have more expensive plans, for example, as do people living in regions with high health-care costs, like Alaska and California. Plans that cover families who have experienced “unfortunate, catastrophic” health events can be pricey, too.
The 40 percent excise tax was designed to kill at least two birds with one stone, by reining in health-care spending and providing funding for other provisions of Obamacare, including insurance subsidies for low-income Americans. Starting in 2020—a new deadline passed by Congress last month—the tax will be levied on plan providers, like insurance companies and self-insured employers.
But it would ultimately have effects on workers, too: An insurance company would pass at least some of the cost on to employers, who would in turn make coverage or cost-sharing adjustments to contend with the tax.
The tax applies to health-insurance premiums that cost more than $10,200 for a single person or more than $27,500 for couples and families. Those thresholds, which include both the employee and employer contributions, are designed to rise with inflation.
But “because health costs tend to grow faster than inflation,” the number of health-care plans that qualify for the tax will rise, too. Kosali Simon, a health economist at Indiana University, suggests that as premiums first rise above the threshold in small amounts, it might not be a “big deal” for individuals. But over time, “more and more” people will find “more and more” of their premiums subject to the tax.
Unions have been among the most vocal opponents of the Cadillac tax, as they have traditionally used substantial benefits packages to attract members. But Klein’s group, the Alliance to Fight the 40—which counts unions, insurance companies, an American Cancer Society affiliate, and county governments among its members—claims every American covered by employer-sponsored insurance, roughly 175 million people, are “at risk,” because of the inflation indexing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/cadillac-tax-obamacare/431679/
Just wait until this tax kicks in. It will hurt businesses and hurt employees.
“But the reality of it is: It’s going to affect plans that are expensive, not necessarily the ones that are the most comprehensive.” Advocates like Klein contend that some plans are pricey through “no fault” of insurance-plan sponsors or the workers who have them; cohorts with more ill, disabled, or older workers often have more expensive plans, for example, as do people living in regions with high health-care costs, like Alaska and California. Plans that cover families who have experienced “unfortunate, catastrophic” health events can be pricey, too.
The 40 percent excise tax was designed to kill at least two birds with one stone, by reining in health-care spending and providing funding for other provisions of Obamacare, including insurance subsidies for low-income Americans. Starting in 2020—a new deadline passed by Congress last month—the tax will be levied on plan providers, like insurance companies and self-insured employers.
But it would ultimately have effects on workers, too: An insurance company would pass at least some of the cost on to employers, who would in turn make coverage or cost-sharing adjustments to contend with the tax.
The tax applies to health-insurance premiums that cost more than $10,200 for a single person or more than $27,500 for couples and families. Those thresholds, which include both the employee and employer contributions, are designed to rise with inflation.
But “because health costs tend to grow faster than inflation,” the number of health-care plans that qualify for the tax will rise, too. Kosali Simon, a health economist at Indiana University, suggests that as premiums first rise above the threshold in small amounts, it might not be a “big deal” for individuals. But over time, “more and more” people will find “more and more” of their premiums subject to the tax.
Unions have been among the most vocal opponents of the Cadillac tax, as they have traditionally used substantial benefits packages to attract members. But Klein’s group, the Alliance to Fight the 40—which counts unions, insurance companies, an American Cancer Society affiliate, and county governments among its members—claims every American covered by employer-sponsored insurance, roughly 175 million people, are “at risk,” because of the inflation indexing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/cadillac-tax-obamacare/431679/
Just wait until this tax kicks in. It will hurt businesses and hurt employees.
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