Originally published June 12 2005
Now is the time for government-run healthcare, say some
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In the face of a national healthcare crisis, in which five million fewer jobs provide healthcare now than in 2001, and more than 750,000 families file for bankruptcy each year citing medical costs as the reason, experts say it's time to turn to a government-run national healthcare system. Skyrocketing costs have forced many employers, including GM, to cut back health coverage for workers, but because private corporations always feel they can run things better than the government, change is not likely anytime soon. In a poll of small business owners, 39 percent said they think a government-run healthcare system could solve today's problems.
How's this for irony: General Motors Corp., the first big American company to grant health care benefits to its unionized workers, now is blaming the cost of providing those benefits for its current financial woes.
When GM Chairman Rick Wagoner spoke at the Chicago Auto Show this year, he "mentioned his Cadillac brand three times, his Buick brand four times and health care a total of 31,'' Knight Ridder News Service reported.
In 2004, the automaker spent $5.2 billion on health care for its 1.1 million employees, retirees and their dependents.
Small and medium-sized businesses are overwhelmed at the huge costs of insuring their employees, and 45 million Americans have no health insurance at all.
So, I wonder, why isn't American business at the forefront of the fight for a government-run health insurance system in the United States?
It's because, as business people, they believe the market can do anything better than the government can.
No amount of evidence to the contrary seems to convince them otherwise.
*The average cost of health insurance premiums increased 59 percent from 2001 through 2004.
Those statistics come courtesy of Rick Mayes, assistant professor of public policy at the University of Richmond and author of Universal Coverage: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance.
Mayes' research shows that the effort led by then-first lady Hilary Rodham Clinton actually had a chance because it divided the business community.
Mayes is a health care policy wonk whose analysis says that efforts to pass a national health insurance plan are dead for now.
Instead, it pays them so little that they qualify for coverage under Medicaid, our national health insurance system for poor people.
Proof these are desperate times that call for desperate measures.
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