Thursday, August 18, 2005
More absurdity in The Cap-Journal
[Greg Tarpinian, "Universal health care -- auto industry's last hope," MinutemanMedia.org, The Topeka Capital-Journal, 12 Friday 2005.]
It used to be that The Topeka Capital-Journal was willing to consider opinion pieces from any and all. In those days, even The Flint Hills Center was able to get a piece or two printed.
At some point, however, an executive decision was made to eliminate local content from its opinion section. The Cap-Journal still sends out plenty of opinions these days - they are just posted online instead of in print. Local content there, however, is still a rare sighting.
Instead, readers are flooded with columns from the far-left organization MinuteManMedia. I have no way to guage if readers appreciate this, but my guess is most everyone would like a change of pace now and then.
In any case, here's a union-backed piece from MinuteMan that just ran which advocates socialized medicine as the answer to the auto industry's many problems:
The financial crisis born of mismanagement leaves the companies facing costs they cannot cover, including health care costs.
GM paid out $5.2 billion for health care benefits in 2004 and expects to pay out $5.8 billion this year. These benefit costs are part of the total compensation negotiated in union contracts that traded what would have been higher wage increases for better benefit provisions.
The costs have been exacerbated by the unwillingness of the Bush administration and Congress to address the catastrophic rise of health care costs in the United States. GM's $73 billion liability for retiree health benefits could be covered three times over by the amount the United States squanders every year on administrative costs for its private health care system.
China and India will begin exporting cars to the United States within the next few years. Carmakers in both countries benefit from national health care systems that pay for employee benefits with public funds.
The U.S. automakers are moving more production to Canada where a national health care program provides coverage for workers and their families for less than one-fifth of the cost of health benefits on the U.S. side of the border.
The Bush administration has a choice. It can preside over the dissolution of what remains of the U.S. auto industry or it can take the first steps toward a national solution for the health care cost crisis that is distorting labor markets, driving down disposable income, leaving millions of Americans without health care and creating the largest competitive disadvantage that U.S. companies now face.
Well, he had me with the first half of the article where he detailed GM's financial mismanagement and poor planning. I get lost when he then makes the leap to say that these bad business decisions should be rewarded with a federal bail out. Plenty of other industries are struggling with health care costs and not asking to turn the system of private medicine into a government monopoly.
The fact that China and India and Canada have nationalized health care hardly makes the case that we should follow suit here. Even with its flaws, the American health care system is far superior to any of these. If other countries choose to subsidize their health care they will accomplish two things - a diversion of resources away from better uses, and a reduction in the quality and availability of health care generally. In other words, less for more.
It might be easier simply to seal off the borders to any international trade so our domestic firms need not worry about competition from countries with nationalized health coverage. That, however, would be an equally absurd example of where what's good for GM is far from what's best for everyone else in the country.
["Matt Hisrich responds to Kansas Insurance Commissioner calls for nationalized health care," The Flint Hills Center, 22 July 2004.]
[Greg Tarpinian, "Universal health care -- auto industry's last hope," MinutemanMedia.org, The Topeka Capital-Journal, 12 Friday 2005.]
It used to be that The Topeka Capital-Journal was willing to consider opinion pieces from any and all. In those days, even The Flint Hills Center was able to get a piece or two printed.
At some point, however, an executive decision was made to eliminate local content from its opinion section. The Cap-Journal still sends out plenty of opinions these days - they are just posted online instead of in print. Local content there, however, is still a rare sighting.
Instead, readers are flooded with columns from the far-left organization MinuteManMedia. I have no way to guage if readers appreciate this, but my guess is most everyone would like a change of pace now and then.
In any case, here's a union-backed piece from MinuteMan that just ran which advocates socialized medicine as the answer to the auto industry's many problems:
The financial crisis born of mismanagement leaves the companies facing costs they cannot cover, including health care costs.
GM paid out $5.2 billion for health care benefits in 2004 and expects to pay out $5.8 billion this year. These benefit costs are part of the total compensation negotiated in union contracts that traded what would have been higher wage increases for better benefit provisions.
The costs have been exacerbated by the unwillingness of the Bush administration and Congress to address the catastrophic rise of health care costs in the United States. GM's $73 billion liability for retiree health benefits could be covered three times over by the amount the United States squanders every year on administrative costs for its private health care system.
China and India will begin exporting cars to the United States within the next few years. Carmakers in both countries benefit from national health care systems that pay for employee benefits with public funds.
The U.S. automakers are moving more production to Canada where a national health care program provides coverage for workers and their families for less than one-fifth of the cost of health benefits on the U.S. side of the border.
The Bush administration has a choice. It can preside over the dissolution of what remains of the U.S. auto industry or it can take the first steps toward a national solution for the health care cost crisis that is distorting labor markets, driving down disposable income, leaving millions of Americans without health care and creating the largest competitive disadvantage that U.S. companies now face.
Well, he had me with the first half of the article where he detailed GM's financial mismanagement and poor planning. I get lost when he then makes the leap to say that these bad business decisions should be rewarded with a federal bail out. Plenty of other industries are struggling with health care costs and not asking to turn the system of private medicine into a government monopoly.
The fact that China and India and Canada have nationalized health care hardly makes the case that we should follow suit here. Even with its flaws, the American health care system is far superior to any of these. If other countries choose to subsidize their health care they will accomplish two things - a diversion of resources away from better uses, and a reduction in the quality and availability of health care generally. In other words, less for more.
It might be easier simply to seal off the borders to any international trade so our domestic firms need not worry about competition from countries with nationalized health coverage. That, however, would be an equally absurd example of where what's good for GM is far from what's best for everyone else in the country.
["Matt Hisrich responds to Kansas Insurance Commissioner calls for nationalized health care," The Flint Hills Center, 22 July 2004.]
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