>This absense of cheap and accessible quality health is something
>that puzzles me, too. I've always assumed we'd get national
>healthcare when unions had the cloat to either demand it or win real
>private health insurance back, so business would look to shift the
>cost and get on board, too. It's never happened. Okay. But why at
>least some US corporations don't use a cost-benefit analysis in
>supporting national health is a puzzler. From the early 80s on,
>unions such as the UAW and Steelworkers were faced with the
>Hobson's choice of getting either raises or better benefit funding
>as health costs soared for business. If the burden of health care is
>indeed so onorous, and the unions developed the muscle to make
>health care a priority, why wouldn't some Iacocca or other maverick
>type come out for dumping the cost on the government. You say it's
>"ideology." Could be, though when ideology trumps self-interest it's
>the ideologue who suffers.
>
>Wanna say more on the "ideology" angle?
I mean that the US corporate class would never allow the creation of another "entitlement," a large and potentially popular public program, becuase it would make the working class less pliable and more demanding, and it could improve the image of the public sector and damage that of the private sector. So I should have said "class power" along with "ideology." I suspect they're willing to put up with the cost - and a diminishing number of them are offering health insurance, and those that do are doing so with bigger co-pays - to preserve their ideological and power advantage.
Doug