Save Detroit and launch universal health care in one easy step.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1) Allow the big three to drop health coverage for employees and retirees. This saves the automakers many billions. Each GM car or truck has $1500 baked into the price for medical care for employees and retirees. They pay more for health care than they pay for steel.
2) Enroll all those who lost their coverage in Medicare with a small sliding premium.

Pressure will mount from other industry and their employees to get the same deal. De-facto medicare for all. When government is paying the bills, they'll begin to negotiate vigorously with the medical industry for decent pricing.

It will cost a lot to get rolling, but no more so that the valueless bailouts we're currently engaging in.

[drm604]

1. Sounds like a good idea to me.

You should go to change.gov and suggest it.

[redqueen]

2. Can we just get HR 676 passed?

Is that too much to ask?

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Yes. It's easier to pass help for citizens if it's carefully disguised as a bailout for corps.

It's a fucked up government we have, but we should be able to bend it to our will through deceptive means.

[Romulox]

6. Hey, we "can't afford" UHC, but we CAN afford 2 wars and a Wall Street bailout

"It's a fucked up government we have, but we should be able to bend it to our will through deceptive means."

You can say that again!

[redqueen]

8. I just wouldn't like to see it only offered

to the employees of one company / industry.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Every door opens up a crack before swinging wide open.

Shock Doctrine can work two ways. The examples shown by Naomi Klein are one way. The example shown by FDR and his new deal are the other.

We can either allow disaster capitalists to exploit catastrophe in getting what they want, or we can do the same.

[ogneopasno]

4. The Big Three and the UAW have been trying to figure out how to lobby for this for some time.

Under Bush, I know they figured it just wasn't going to happen. But unions and large corporations -- and, for that matter, doctors -- will likely push for single-payer health care to lighten the burden. This would help so very much.

[Romulox]

5. The alternative is to bankrupt the Big 3, in which case the gov't will have to assume healthcare

responsibilities for pensioners anyhow.

[Greyhound]

7. And impose an immediate 25% tariff on all imported vehicles. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. I dunno about that.

My priorities:
1) UHC
2) Preserve and restore as many manufacturing jobs in this country as possible.

So many cars are built in so many places that it's difficult to identify any that aren't imported, to one degree or another. If we make the US an affordable place to build things (without depressing wages) a lot of other problems take care of themselves.

[Greyhound]

15. The tariff meshes perfectly with your priorities.

UHC = vastly improved competitiveness for the auto industry

High import tariffs are a very strong motivation to bring the jobs back to the US. Why should we be the only country sacrificing our standard of living to prop up foreign manufacturers?

[newtothegame]

11. This is a great idea...

but if everyone goes on something like Medicare, and even lower rates are negotiated, many hospitals will a) fail or b) only be able to provide stone-age medical care. No new technologies, drugs or services will be purchased at all. I know this because I am a hospital administrator in Iowa. Many hospitals, mine included, only survive because they can make up Medicare/Medicaid losses by negotiating higher rates for commercial insurers. I like this idea in theory, but I'm just not sure how it would work.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. UHC seems to work everywhere else, for a number of reasons.

Notably, it eliminates the working poor uninsured. Your hospital wouldn't need the commercial insurers windfall to offset the losses from the uninsured.

[Strawman]

13. Yep. Its a great backdoor approach to universal health care

Dare the Republicans to block it. They'll be totally dead in Michigan. More than they are now.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Kudos!

Great idea.

[Usrename]

16. Sounds good to me.

Single payer makes the most sense from both the economic and moral perspectives. Time to push the economic argument to the front.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. I've long thought that, at this time, only the economic argument is a winner.

We've had so much of the Reagan revolution that actual moral questions don't enter our consciousness, except to manipulate us into voting against our self interests.

[Overseas]

17. Yes Please! Health care is one of my big examples of why we do not have a free market.

If we had a truly free market, our businesses would have demanded government paid healthcare a long time ago.

But perhaps it is still free-- markets are free to bribe politicians to prevent government sponsored health care.

But seriously folks-- why the US Chamber of Commerce wouldn't be the main advocate for single payer government sponsored health care is beyond me. US businesses are competing with countries like Japan that have that. If our businesses didn't have to pay for health insurance, their products would be a lot more competitive.

So the Chamber cares more about ideologically opposing anything that smacks of socialism RATHER THAN making US products more competitive worldwide.

[ContinentalOp]

19. No, no, no. That's absurd.

Let's just hand billions of dollars over to the Big 3 to use as they see fit. :P

Seriously though, good idea.

[lostnfound]

20. A kick -- "you've already recommended that thread". nt

[Chemical Bill]

21. What's good for GM is good for the country. n/t