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The chart to the left shows the losses and profits per car of some major car companies. John over at Powerline uses it to argue that there should be no bailout, because the Big 3 are so unprofitable it's just pointless. Let's do some simple math. Take a look at GM's loss per car, about $700. What is GM's cost per car for health care? $1,500. What happens if you add $1,500? A profit. Of $800/car.
What the chart proves is that American car companies (except for Ford) are only not profitable, at this point, because of health care costs. The simplest thing to do to help the US economy (by not losing millions of jobs and one of the few remaining export industries) is to just pass universal health care, taking those costs off them, and in the meantime give them bridging funds to get them by until that's done. Foreign car companies have far fewer health care costs, so all universal health care does is even out the playing field. Even Ford, with health care costs off, would be very close to profitability.
My thanks to the folks at Powerline for making the case for universal healthcare and for helping the auto industry so clearly.
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Excellent point, Ian!
A little misleading though because the cost of healthcare doesn’t go from $1,500 to $0. There is no free lunch.
The price is somewhere between those figures, and we don’t know who will pay that cost yet.
It will certainly make them more viable no matter who pays it.
Thanks Scarecrow.
digg
Except Ian, the folks at Powerline have no conception about logical or coherent thought processes.
The old cliche
comes into play here.
Apologies Ian.
Ian, where is he getting his numbers from? I was trying to use Edgar for the SEC filings and could not find recent income statements for several of those companies, notably Daimler-Chrysler. If he is not using publicly available info, where is this stuff coming from?
I have never understood why corporate America has not led the charge on single payer universal healthcare. As MsAnnaNOLA points out, it would not reduce their costs to zero but it would seriously decrease them.
If you go to real universal (ie. single payor), the cost will go to very close to zero, the only issue being uncovered services. There might be a slight tax increase, but it won’t be all that large. If the US does universal right, anyway.
Still, the larger point is simply this: without health care costs GM and Chrysler would be viable, and under any competent health care plan, they’d save enough.
It’d reduce a significant chunk of the ‘legacy’ costs…!
Not sure, but I’ve seen similiar numbers elsewhere.
I have never understood why the big manufacturing companies have not pushed for Universal Health care. Just as you said Ian suddenly the US becomes very competitive on the global scene with regards to the cost of health care that is tacked onto every product made here!
Depends on how govt paid for medical care. If they instate a tax on employers, then cost does not go anywhere near zero.
Nice. I’ve been convinced of this (based on no data whatsoever) for years. And ditto for every other endeavor in the country, including non-profits and things that don’t have to provide health coverage. Universal coverage would just free up so much on the corporate and personal level.
Well, I’m just a reformed accountant — I’m not going to believe this chart unless I see the official SEC filings with “sales revenues” and “cost of goods sold” figures on it. This reminds me of that “Detroit Auto Workers Make $75 an hour; Toyota makes $48 an hour” meme - where is THAT coming from? Another specious piece of manipulation.
Wall St. analysts publish tons of reports with those kinds of figures in them. If that’s the source, they’re probably accurate.
The other thing is — what figures are they using from Honda, Toyota and Nissan? These guys manufacture vehicles all over the world. Are these total figures, in which, their average costs also factor in other countries’ much lower labor costs, etc.? I mean, really - what is the source of the data that produced this chart?
i agree that the calculations are probably not as favorable as ian describes. but i think his conclusion is not far off.
presumably there would be taxes to pay for universal health care - if we assume that the auto companies would still be paying for their employee’s health care…. but now it would be via a universal single payer. so how much would be saved - would it be close to 30%? that would be a savings of $500.
then there is going to be the savings to the employees. how much to they pay in after tax income now for copays, etc now? how does that work out on a per car basis?
looks pretty good to me. the important thing to note though is that obama’s health insurance plan doesn’t have the savings that a single payer one will. we’ve got to go single payer.
This is Great Ian the GOP always says Japan makes cheaper cars but Japan having National Healthcare is a fact they never mention. Not having National Healthcare cost Jobs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Japan
Also wouldn’t the Hondas and Toyotas have to pay too.
Hey MissAnna, coming down to the easy this weekend. Looks like the poorboy preservation festival may be the deal?
i think it must be related to the reason why neither Levin nor the auto companies ever did anything about speculation in the oil markets.
You are assuming that a single payer govt plan will be less expensive than the mashup that the US currently has. Considering how they did prescription drugs, you might want to reconsider your assumption.
thank you for the reality check.
Chrysler is under the control of Cerberus Dan Qualye’s hedge fund if you can numbers tell me! If. Cerberus should not get a cent of bailout money they have deep pockets.
Unless they open up their books and if Cerberus needs cash that bad investors will flee the hedgefund.
Ian’s the one with the brain.
The single biggest fault, besides the ‘donut-hole’ is the fact Medicare is forbidden to negotiate prices with Big Pharma…
LOL. good point. i’m using what i remember from PNHP’s numbers.
The trip to see the Wiz failed…? ;-)
Evening, Ian;
I have wondered for years why Detroit was not in the vangurd of supporting single payer, one can only suppose that the whole ‘idea’ must not have met with the approval of the ‘fortunate sons’ who have, so often, been chief executives.
In fact, had the Chamber of Commerce the wits of a doorstop, they should long ago have figured out how to ’socialize’ such costs/s.
unfortunately, the arguement is a red herring. they are as dysfunctional as the gov’t as well. might not be worth the cost. ya know, everything has one.
Well, one major difference is that single payer would most likely NOT be written by the Healthcare/Insurance company lobbyists as the Pharma Bill was.
Dems are usually a tad bit more discrete in their sell-outs, Short Ride notwithstanding.
What is the cost of shipping cars from Japan to America that cost should be going up with fuel prices?
What a surprise. The U.S. is only about 45 years behind Western European and the Japanese in providing universal health care. The chickens are coming home to roost to the U.S. that has had it’s head buried in the sand, if not in a darker place, for fear that universal health care means SOCIALISM. Oooo, that’s scary.
not exactly ot - i’m just now putting together a hearing list for this week. there are 2 big hearings on legislation for auto bailout (with the big three ceos and uaw) and another hearing on health care. will post the details in a bit.
Ah those sneaky Canadians *g*:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci.....734547.stm
considering the dem leadership is now against a single payer plan and instead going for a plan the insurance cos can love, i’m not so sure about that… :(
up to us to push for single payer if that is what we want.
Universal Health Care, just like a solid Social Security System, are just not fair to people like George W. Bush. If everyone’s well cared for, what’s the point of being born wealthy? Bush worked hard to be born into the right family. Don’t dishonor his work by making things better for those who did not.
Where there’s a campaign contribution, there’s a way.
If you view labor as a cost to be minimized rather than a tool to be used you do not see the need to take care of your tools and don’t mind leaving them out in the rain.
Are your tools your livihood or are your tools replaceable?
Moose farts
OT Tweety asked Rep Dan Burton of Indiana if he still thought Hilary killed Vince Foster Dan seemed embarrassed.
Why not apply the Shock Doctrine in reverse? Klein has been suggesting that lately. Don’t go progressive in stages. Do it all at once. Turn Medicare into a single payer plan. Everybody’s Medicare tax would go up but it would be a whole lot cheaper than any private health insurance plan. Kill NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, IMF, regulate the shit out of banks and Wall Street. Shift the economy from that of a financial services economy to an industrial economy (that ain’t gonna happen overnight).
Hey, a dude can dream, right?
I’ve wanted to see the doc “Prairie Giant, The Tommy Douglas Story” but has it ever been shown on any tv channel in the US? Is the dvd even available to buy here?
I can’t imagine why media tv heads wouldn’t want to air a doc about a man who succeeded in getting universal health care in Canada, heh.
on the news tonight it was stated that GM union workers make $71 and hour while toyota union workers make $47 an hour. Now i’m a big supporter of unions, but shouldn’t there be some uniformity here?
yeah, i never got why big car corps don’t get on the single payer bandwagon. some nefarious reason i’m sure, but i’m damned if i can see the sense in them not supporting it. leverage anyone?
I want to see it too!
not on amazon anyway
Does that include benefits are they comparing American workers in the big three vs American workers for Japanese cars in America or in Japan where they have healthcare.
Where they have 300 mph trains to get you to work. Where they have a strong FDA to keep bad food out of the country.
Hear! Hear!
Well said!
naomi klein made an interesting point on democracy now today. she said the wall st bailout wasn’t the goverment takeover of banks but in actuality it’s the privatization of the treasury dept. by wall st.
Ian, you’re usually pretty sharp, but this foolery you spout is nonsense. Universal healthcare does not equal magical healthcare. If done right it means somewhat lower costs and better healthcare for more people, but it is by no means free - it costs a lot and the money comes from somewhere…like mostly from workers and their companies (either directly or through sufficient wages for workers to pay). Plus, almost all the cost savings comes about in universal healthcare from eliminating the profits that insurance companies take, and the inefficiencies insurance companies force on the system. Since no one in the US except Michael Moore is talking about cutting out the insurance companies, universal healthcare in the US, if ever enacted will likely end up a terrible clusterfuck that costs more rather than less, yet another scam robbing from the struggling classes to further enrich the moneyed class.
There is more than enough dissembling and deception out there without passing around some stinking baloney. Healthcare is a great and necessary thing for the US, but it won’t be cheap and it alone can’t resuscitate GM and Chrysler.
japanese cars made in US. you make a good pt though. someone should look into comparing union wages, benefits, etc at all the cars manufacturers in the US>
That $71/hr likely represents salary and benefits, including GM’s portion of pension plan, workman’s comp insurance, FICA, etc, which is a legitimate accounting for the cost of the labour power of 1 employee for 1 hour.
Which begs the question, for me anyhow, what accounts for the cost differential at Toyota?
No I think you got a good idea, but does Obama have the guts? Frame it as the only way to save Detroit use Ian’s article’s facts to back up the idea.
Remember we are the only ones who want to save Detroit if we say do it our way or not at all the GOP will get tagged as obstructionist in the Senate.
It would be the Newt Government shutdown all over again. People want this we want the GOP to try and oppose it, 30%ers like their American cars.
Powerline has the political sense of a Dodo.
Thank You:)
Here ’tis
right on there. when will someone in public service stand up and say we dont NEED the insurance companies? that’s what really gets my goat. this isn’t rocket science, but the house niggahs for big insurance like us to think it is. I mean, Medicare already exists for chrissake. And it works well if people let it work, and doctors don’t refuse to treat patients because the govt pays them less than private insurers do. If you eliminate the private system for the most part by providing most folks single payer health coverage, the doctors would have to take what they get. And what about euro countries where MDs get a salary from the govt and seem to live pretty well anyway? anyone who hasn’t watched Sicko and wants to be informed on this subject should see it.
So what is the cost per car for executive compensation? With incompetence on this scale, whatever it is, it is too much.
exactly…. a very good question. I read the other day at the defense dept website that Blackwater was hiring laid off Ford workers to build the next gen military vehicles.
so .. not to worry , auto workers out there……
oh thank you, you are a gem! guess i shoulda jus typed in the short version….
Then we get rid go to a Michael Moore/France plan to get the savings. Admitting that you are wrong is something Bush could never do can Obama do it?
Bush’s people arguing that we had enough troops to invade Iraq and years later Bush/McCain praising the Surge was heart rending…they should have done that years ago.
We need leaders who can admit mistakes.
It does. The average UAW-represented GM assembly line worker made just under $28 per hour in Oct. 2007. Here is a link.
Real good question.
Building is one thing, designing is something else. I doubt Blackwater is flush with automotive design engineers. Mayhaps His Excellency Eric Prince will buy Ford.
The CEO was making $15.7 million in April.
How about we lower the GM CEO’s pay to what the CEO of Toyota makes and the Ford CEO’s pay to what the CEO of Honda makes.
Whatever makes you think the US could do medical care as well and as cheaply as the French? Everything you observe about the prez & congress tells you they’d screw it up. Even if they had the nerve to do single payer govt plan to begin with. This whole thread is living in an alternate universe.
I’m starting to get a little uneasy about the transition folks O is choosing, especially in the national security area. All folks who supported torture and helped make the BS fake intel case for war in Iraq. Is the guy really naive or is he being smart? I keep wondering if this is gonna just be a tortuous bundle of months where I wonder when he’s gonna stop hedging his bets. So far not ONE person he’s chosen has a clean progressive bill of health.
Wow.. Do you have a link to that?
now yer talkin
Yes. Obama’s plan is not single payer which according to articles I have read over the years (if I am remembering correctly) is where the savings is. The savings of single payer will also put people out of work though. Not sure what the estimates are for that.
I am not sure we save much at all without single payer. Maybe we get bargaining power for the people who are buying individualy and to buy drugs but we don’t get rid of all the wasted effort of running after paperwork and trying to deny care and the huge percentage of profit these companies expect to generate for shareholders.
I have a better idea. Let’s fire the CEOs of both companies and hire the CEOs of Toyota and Honda to run the companies for 10% more than they are making now.
Southern Dragon - let’s look at workers comp, something I do know a teeny bit about since I used to do economic development and had to do a lot of comparing. The entire basis of workers comp in older industrial states is completely different than that in newer industrial states(or, if you will, northeast and midwest vs. the South). First, in older industrial states, under WC, there is the long time concept of ‘permanent partial disability’, which basically means that if someone is injured badly enough, the manufacturer is ‘on the hook’…forever. I’m not going to argue any points of rightness or fairness. When an injured worker is accounted for in that way, the company’s WC insurer(or the state insurance fund)basically will require money to be put into the WC ‘reserve’ for this person forever. The only time this stops is a) when an injured worker goes back to work and b) when the company can get the insurer to agree to take them off. It is not in the insurer’s best interest to do this, and companies generally employ people full time to do nothing but sit on the phones and argue with the insurer to have this done. But with permanent partial disability, injured workers never get taken off the listing and companies keep paying for them. And, by the way, the amount of money that companies have to put in the reserve for an individual injured worker is NOT equal to what they are getting for WC - it is several times that figure, for ‘just in case’.
In the newer industrial states (i.e., the South), permanent partial disability does not exist - there are schedules for how much money an injured worker gets and FOR HOW LONG THEY GET IT. Period. End of story. At the end of that period, the person comes off the reserve. There is also the concept in the Southern states of ‘contributory negligence’ in terms of WC. If a worker loses a hand on the job and is found under examination in the hospital to have alcohol in their system, depending on the BA rate, they may get no WC at all, even if the injury was caused by negligence on the part of the employer in terms of maintaining a safe working environment, providing safety equipment, guards on the machines and so on. The third thing is what is called “the mod” - the modifier. Every company when they start has a ‘mod’ of 1. Every WC position has a price, so if a company starts with a mod of 1, then they are just paying what the WC position costs. As they accumulate ‘history’(that is, accidents that get reported), the mod goes higher. The more dangerous the job is, the higher the WC cost. The more accidents a company has, the higher the mod and that muliplies the cost. Ford, Chrysler, GM are older companies in the US WC system and therefore have a longer history, more accidents over the past period and therefore a much higher mod. These foreign auto makers entered the US and the WC system much, much later, with better equipment, safer equipment, newer facilities and so on, so not only did they start without the penalty of a long-standing mod, their chances of accumulating accident are much less as well.
Younger nonunion workers in America? Perhaps less benefits too? What about workers in Japan vs America?
you are in the right place
voila
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3700665
Great ideas. I’m in the mood to push our reps and senators real real hard. Hard.
If we have to we can hire French healthcare bureaucractsfor their expertise and give them the power to run it as they see fit.
The NewsHour has two guys on both arguing that the US should stay in Iraq even longer than the 3 years proposed in the Bush’s illegal SOFA. Boy is that balance or what? Will Obama honor is commitment to pull troops out within 16 months or is he going to cave on that too?
but all the folks single payer puts out of work can go to work for us (our govt) managing the new system!
Great that is a worry.
here’s why i think they may not screw it up as bad as they usually do - because their health insurance goes away and they have to use the same system we do.
the more i think about incentives, the more i think the necessary condition for getting less than completely fucked up governance is to make sure that the elites are affected (just like we are) by the choices they make.
if i was able to make just one decision about a single payer plan, it would not be a policy one - it would be that every member of congress and the government would have exactly the same plan as the rest of us
Place tariffs on cars imported in to the US from countries that place tariffs or limit import of US made vehicles brought in for sale in their countries like Korea and Japan. I have no problem with Toyota and Honda factories in the US, but our manufactures should be offered the same opportunties in foriegn countries.
I like it Carlos Goshen of Nissan did want to buy GM not to long ago.
now that is brilliant.
Guess you haven’t heard Baucus (think that’s who said it) talking about making US medical program uniquely American.
yeah that guy on squawkbox cnbc the other day going on about how american don’t WANT gas efficient cars. you know, like,…. quoi?
lots of good reports from physicians for a national health program (PNHP) - awesome work, awesome people (the ones i’ve met).
No I have not US Medical Program uniquely American as in better, worse focused on American disease?
They’ll never do that. Almost all countries w govt medical care allow extra coverage by those who can afford it.
Thank you.
ie, uniquely corrupt for supposed ‘healthcare”.
I find it disturbing, and this is evidence of the corruption of the very dialogue about it, that people refer to health INSURANCE as health CARE. doublespeak.
No. Uniquely American as in all f’d up.
kittykitty and other interested firedogs -
take a few minutes to read the comments in Jane’s ‘Zapping the Volt’ thread from this morning - eye opening as to pay and pay differences
we need to pay closer attention to sourcing on these figures
It’s already uniquely American. All fucked up. What was it Churchill said, that the American’s will get it right, after they’ve tried everything else.
Evening, all-
This is the same argument for a draft as well.
what kind of extra do you mean?
Owe ya a beverage.
A couple of comments later I agreed with him enthusiastically.
The CEO of GM has been saying that for years. When the Prius first came out he said Toyota was loosing money on every car. When Nissan wanted a partnership GM looked elsewhere for cash.
Now that nobody wants GM the Government has to bail them out.
Harvard MBAs like Bush think executives can lead business without experience in the industry.
Yet the GOP defends them and their pay for decades of failure. Toyota, Honda, Nissan have executives we can hire for 10% more than what they get now and still save millions in CEO salary costs.
Thats what I was afraid of why?
only in time of war - one that has been declared by congress. i welcome you to try to change my mind, but i think it’s going to take a lot to convince me that a large standing army (and navy, air force, marines, coast guard) let alone one supported by forced slavery is a good thing.
I don’t know how the others actually work. At a minimum you can pay for medical care out of your own pocket. I am not sure if you can buy supplement insurance but expect that’s allowed in a lot of places. How do you think all those fancy Harley Street docs in London thrive?
A friend who’s parents-in-law live in Montreal, tells me that the Canadian provinces administer the Canadian medical program and can set their own rules. He tells me that Quebec is one of the few places where you are stuck going to the govt system, no extras allowed. He sez it sucks.
Yeah. Unfortunately he is my senior Senator. Hopelessly corporate DLCer. He really needs to spend more time with his family, but nobody will ever run a credible challenge as he is the second most popular politician in the state, just behind Schweitzer.
hey, thanks for that. had missed it. so i’m wondering… is there any way to let the car corps go into bankruptcy, restructure for better production of more fuel eff cars etc., without breaking the unions? And by the way, does anyone know if the unions have had anything at all to say over the past few years (like since 1973) about WHY their companies weren’t building more fuel eff cars?
Political contributions by interested parties is probably the shortest answer. You tell me why pols don’t do what’s in the voters’ interests.
IRRC the founders, and Washington in particular, were against a standing army from the get go. I’m sorry, I don’t think the
Israeli’sAlbanians are gonna invade us any time soon.IF GM goes bankrupt Toyota could buy the Volt for a song and nobody this side of Warren Buffet would have the cash to out bid them. Also who says that after buying the Green Car Tech that Japan would use it in America to create jobs.
Mexico is close with lower wages. Does anyone understand business on the GOP side?
I vote for voluntary slavery
I’m not about to try that. I’m not even defending that position, just pointing out that the logic is the same-once everyone is affected equally, then we can have an honest national discussion about war and the appropriate size and role of the military.
right arm….. every great chef knows you gotta start by bein the dishwasher
We could cut our defense budget in half and still dwarf the rest of the world. Right now we account for slightly over half of all defense spending in the world - more than everyone else combined.
I would say Po-Boy Festival and maybe check out the Tipitina’s lineup Friday and Saturday.
If you are into Contemporary Art there is P.1 happening through Jan. 18, 2009. I have not been but it is huge. Huge.
“Prospect.1 New Orleans [P.1], the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States, opened to the public on November 1, 2008 in museums, historic buildings, and found sites throughout New Orleans.”
http://www.prospectneworleans.org/
Some of the installations are in the Lower Ninth Ward.
i know a canadian M.D who works here in MA and she goes back home to canada for all her none emergency medical care. cost less and she thinks it’s better quality. oh, and she works at a medical school. n=1 so take it for what it’s worth (not much).
You have a future with the Republican Party. That is their economic plan for labor.
Great, thanks. My bride is all over the artsy stuff. I’m hoping to get down to Laffite and reduced the redfish population.
Bribes, plus yes men and women who buy them lunch get them drunk and tell them how smart they are while talking up Conservative policies. The lobbyists got the Pols on a string they never hear a counter argument from us because the reality based community does not buy them lunch.
Does she work at the House of God?
Evening, SDragon…You make it out to Vinoy this weekend?
you know, i read oh about a year or two ago that the VP for China of, hmmm it was either Ford or GM, got the chinese factories to produce a car that got 40 MPG. It sold like hotcakes in China, and the guy was fired by corp CEO. CEO musta had stock in Exxon.
A good idea, but let’s not support it with specious arguments
When we get single payer, and tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough, there is little doubt that it will be cheaper for all concerned. But it will almost certainly be paid for by a payroll deduction to which the employer will presumably be makng a contribution. Again, this contribution can be expected to be less than what it is now, so the difference would help make the automakers more profitable, but their contribution will not be 0%, so you can’t just subtract their entire present contribution from what you project for their costs under single payer.
Exactly the sort of Ricardian trade outcome an economist would expect. Low cost medical care specializes in routine, high cost one in fancy procedures.
Wasn’t condemning whole Canadian system, just pointing out that in the one place where extras aren’t allowed, it isn’t very popular. (Or maybe it is and my friend, who’s upper middle income, is whining.)
i’m with you on the “everyone treated the same” thing. i just think that unless we’re invaded or something we shouldn’t be at war. imo the problem is that we’ve been at war (declared or not) for so long that we have started to think that’s normal. it’s not.
Ford and GM both already sell cars in Europe and Asia which exceed the most extreme CAFE standards currently proposed here.
No. Got a nasty cold. Slept most of the weekend. Sucks. Big time.
I read about him he got fired? He was suppose to be the hope for the company GM I think it was was making money in China as opposed to loosing money here.
So Failure is the path to success in Corporate America? Is not being a threat/competent the path up?
Falling Empires with stratified social economic levels act like this, that is not good.
House of God?
Cheap maintenance on a car like an apple helps keep the Mechanic/Doctor away for major costly repairs.
Anecdotal evidence of known injured people in Louisiana suggests workman’s compensation is a joke. Most likely you will never collect anything.
There’s a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_God. Also a movie. Some of the psychiatrists I worked with at VA Denver and the medical school were the basis for some of the characters. Composites but my ward chief, who’s one of them, pointed them out. Fit to a tee. Funny book. I recommend it. GOMER - Get Out Of My Emergency Room.
or maybe it’s so hard to get to see a doc here that it compares favorably - i had to wait 8 mos from the time i made my first appointment with pcp until the first opening. during all that time, i didn’t even have a doc. wait times to see a specialist are typically 3-5 months (at one point my pcp took the phone from his assistant and read them the riot act - was successful in shaving off a couple of months). my experience has been mostly very bad here - unlike everywhere else i’ve lived (where i’ve had mostly really excellent health care) so that could be why canada looks good.
Essentially, I agree with you, but the calculus is vastly complicated by the collective security arrangements created after WWII, in which we are obligated to defend our allies, even to the point of nuclear war. The fact is, the alliance system can demand that we do go to war, even when we have not been attacked directly ourselves.
I am not for this but I think this will never happen unless you outlaw non-government providers. The rich will always be able to get what they want, when they want it unless non-govt healthcare is outlawed.
I am not for this because I don’t think it will pass with this.
yeah, i have the article around here somewhere. I do recall that it was the NY times though.
BTW thanks for this piece Ian. Good stuff here.
Yeah. It always cracks me up when pols or R callers on WJ say US can’t go to govt medical sys because the waiting time is so long.
even so, that doesn’t account for us fighting someone almost constantly.
I think that if physicians are behind it, it may have a chance. I think they have the most to gain as well as the most to loose.
FWIW an idea I had is we may have to buy out some new medical school grads. I think this is only fair if we go to single payer which would necessarily limit their total compensation long term. If medical school grads have significant debt based on future ability to pay and that changed, they should be compensated.
I think we should make medical school very low cost as part of the new single payer system. No gettng out $200,000 grand in debt. It is not sustainable. This way we get doctors who actually want to be doctors not people who want to make a lot of money not giving care.
i’m a sucker for gallows humor.
Coolidge(?) - The business of America is business.
War is good business. Give your son. - Jefferson Airplane
You should have heard Mullins presser today, asserting confidently that US military at 4.3% of GDP is just right because we have so many committments around the globe. No one asked him why we need 720 bases all over the place, or why we need such military toys when there’s no enemy to use them against. Spit. But that’s the DC wisdom & no one will speak against it.
One of these guys went on to become head of the National Mental Health Institute. Really a sharp dude, great guy and wanted to do wonderful things for thought disorders. All of them that I met were first rate. The stories they used to tell about Mass General were irreverent and funny and hell.
off the top of my head… i like the idea of people being able to get an education, get training, whatever you want to call it - without having to go into debt. don’t know if it would have much support from all the docs who’ve had to pay off their student loans though.
really need to give this some thought though (and talk with some docs to hear what they think)… and am v. glad you and others are thinking about this.
edit -
andas helli didn’t see it was Mass General. might have to pass. i probably hate that place more than any other i can think of (at least the oncology part). spent a few weeks there in ‘92 with my mom when she was dying. was still having nightmares a year later. hate. that. place.
My understanding is that the AMA is very rigid about the number of MDs that are graduated each year, keeping supply well below demand. If we could open up the schools and get agreements to act as GPs in rural communities, etc, for a set period of time in exchange for an education that would be one way to expand health care. Same thing the military does at its academies.
They do understand and they don’t care. The Reps view is that the cheaper producer should always produce. This is strict free-market.
Frankly I am not sure it matters anymore. Either way we are on a race to the bottom here in USA unless we start something new that only we have that produces jobs and is very valuable to the rest of the world. Unless we start prioritizing where our scarce resources get spent, we are going to be hurting for the forseeable future. Our standard of living will continue to decline.
We are post-industrial England. Stagnant with high unemployment and high legacy costs. Except we are losing the hegenomy of our currency day by day. They never really lost thiers.
Seems so unfair. My grandfather retired from GM with a great pension and healthcare. He was retired the year I was born and enjoyed his retirement for thirty one years. Odds are I will never retire.
For what it is worth the vastly increased life expectancy over the last 50 or so years is probably a large factor in these companies being in trouble. It is one thing for people to retire for ten years or fifteen years. It is another for each and every retiree to live for thirty years in retirement. Oh and thier spouses too, because spouses get half the pension even after the worker passes away. (Thank heaven for this, my grandmother lived comfortabley.)( I am glad she didn’t live to see GM going under.)
Oh and life expectancies will continue to rise.
LOL. or maybe it was a good thing i missed it? wouldn’t want to OD on all the good news…. *g*
Yep.
Our infant mortality rate is rising and I don’t doubt that our life expectancy will begin to shorten soon if it hasn’t already with the toxins we eat, drink and breathe.
Good luck I hope you catch lots, but you know they farm raise them now. Whole Foods at Magazine and Arabella has it most days for around $13 to $15 per pound. Probably cheaper than a charter!
The charter boat captains could probably use the work though!
Just be careful, the waters can change day to day.
The infant mortality rate has been rising for about a decade after steady declines for a century. Not sure, but I think the life expectancy may have fallen a bit already. (I spend far too much time rooting around in demographic data).
Raven’s a sailor at heart.
By the way: Japan has a health care system rather similar to Canada’s. They do have insurance companies, but they’re reined in compared to what we have here, so there’s not the huge network of intermedaries jacking up the cost of everything.
That’s something that the folks touting the Japanese auto industry never bring up. That, and the much smaller gap between what a Japanese auto worker makes and what his boss makes.
Well no matter what we end up with there will have to be choices. The chances are it won’t be everything to every one. Not every possible life saving procedure will be covered.
It is likely there will be savings from preventative care, but remember the overall demand for healthcare will increase. Will we have to courage to put some controls on healthcare? Will we allow for some cost sharing so there is a disincentive for frivolous care?
Hopefully we will find a way for a plan to happen. I think is is a necessary step for the continued growth of our economy. Just as home ownership in this economy is a barrier to mobility and thus the efficient allocation of resources, the lack of a universal system is a barrier to both mobility and entrepreneurship. If you, your spouse or your child have a pre-existing condition you are pre-cluded from starting your own business. In my opinion this is a barrier to innovation and effeciency.
The current system is stacked in favor of big business that can afford to pay for thier workers healthcare against those that are starting a small business to compete with those larger businesses.
Toyota CEO earns $903,000 compared to GM CEO’s $15.4 million. Somebody is grossly overpaid her and it ain’t at Toyota.
Thanks, the Dragon is right. I love to be on the water and I am sure the charter folks need the work.
I believe that the U.S. average life expectancy is down to 41st in the world, right ahead of Slovenia’s. I understand that Slovenia is a beautiful country. But, right after World War II, weren’t we first?
Well, enjoy yourself. Fishing is a pastime that is highly prized in these parts.
If you can check out wwltv.com or the actual tv version and look for Frank Davis’ Fish’n Game report. He will give you and idea of what is up with the fishes.
Personally, I get sea sick so sitting on a boat that is not moving looking for fish is sort of like being water boarded! I can fish from land, or go for a pleasure cruise but fishing on the boat is hazardous to my tummy and head.
Oh, ask them what the food is if it is included. My mom went on a fishing venture where the only food for 24 hours was rather rudimentary Bar B Q sandwiches from a local fast food joint. She lost it on that trip.
Oh yea, I’ve been doing this for 30+ years. Once took a boat out of Ensenada that had nothing but bean burritos and corona’s for 12 hours. Last summer I got a huge hook through my pinky on a party boat out of Charleston and had no choice but to just rip it out cuz the guwho hooked me was on the other side of the boat and was about to pull my sorry butt over the side! I’m checking the websites and will try to have an idea of what I am doing before we get there.
THAT would be interesting to hear.
And much of that other spending is by our devout friends or by countries who do not count us as enemies, friends or relevant at all.
It’s strange for a country which espouses the peaceful way of Democracy to use wars, as we do, so frequently to control other peoples who we say should be free and control their own destiny.
The regularity of our warring has been explained away for a very long time as the threat from Germany (WWI & WWII) and by Communism. It’s becoming painfully obvious (especially after the death of Saddam Hussein and the Capitalization of China) that there aren’t any real enemies except some religious fanatics.
BTW, now that Iceland is a terrorist nation (since U.K. labeled them) how long ’til we start propagandizing about the godless people of Iceland and all that? Will we all have to turn against geothermal energy to show our feelings about their use of that?
These CEOs have their compensation level set by the board of directors who are also CEOs and friends all around. So, it’s a bit like senate earmark trading. Everybody gets what they want and somebody else pays for it.
I heard someone at a Congressional hearing say the other day that having stock options which can only be redeemed at retirement (or some set time) is crazy since it provokes manipulations and that profit sharing (presumably constantly throughout a career) made a lot more sense. Of course ‘making sense’ isn’t what the high CEO incomes are about.
Maybe government needs to change things.
Horribly EPU’d again: