Insurance Cos. - To Big To Fail (Was: Re: WHO HEALTH REPORT)

[Jeff Walker]

The Labor Party in their Just Health Care program addresses this issue.
Their proposal, off the top of my head, is for a single payer plan funded by
a tax on the richest 5%, a tax on stock and bond transfers, plus some
various other means which escape me right now (you'd think they'd include
their plan on their webpage, but it's not there...)

According to their plan, this would generate enough funding to pay displaced
insurance company employees for four years, plus pay for retraining
programs.

Jeff

----- Original Message -----
From: "Max Sawicky" <sawicky at epinet.org>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 5:48 PM
Subject: RE: WHO HEALTH REPORT Japan health systems ranked best (???)


> . . .
> The power of the insurance companies lies partly, it seems to me, in the
> "too big to fail" category. Could any of the economists on the list
comment
> on what the repercussions would be if the insurance companies lost at
> one blow all their health-insurance business -- as they would if we won
> national health service.   Carrol
>
>
> When an industry gets hammered the effects are magnified
> by the fact that they are concentrated in particular
> areas and communities.  There was a lot of talk about
> this re: the defense build-down, but in the event the
> problems do not seem to have been enormous.  Some people
> ended up in lower-paying jobs, but that has been happening
> more generally.
>
> The Gov would need more employees to administer a public
> system, so some of the insurance people could go there.
> The present employment situation is unusual, but insofar
> as it obtained in your scenario, the displaced workers
> would be easily absorbed elsewhere.
>
> mbs
>
>
>
>