[lbo-talk] corps & single-payer

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 29 15:20:29 PDT 2005


This is plausible as far as it goes. But health care costs are so out of control and industry is losing a long both though having to provide insurance when it does and dealing with lost time due to sick employees that I can't but think that if a Republican institutes a crappy national health plan a la Clinton, and it's not the result of a popular movement as opposed to the Business Roundtable, that some of these concerns (from the pov of the ruling class) can be minimized. (Remember big biz is in favor of affirmative action too, reduces discrimination lawsuits.)

If it's means-tested it won't be perceived as an entitled program, maybe.

Also there will be a big heat from boomers and our kids in 15 years when the money runs out and my generation takes up residence in cardboard boxes under East Wacker Drive -- or with the kiddies, who will decidedly not want us around, with enormous gealth care expenses and no penions or health insurance. When this hits the middle class, it's gonna be a big factor olitically.

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> Michael Hirsch wrote:
>
> >I'm not persuaded--his places too much emphasis on
> consciousness and
> >not enough on real history and real class struggles
>
> I'd say that fear of creating a new "entitlement" is
> all about class
> struggle: universal health insurance would increase
> the power of the
> working class - to paraphrase Kalecki, fear of the
> sack would lose
> some of its sting, since workers wouldn't be
> dependent on employers
> for health insurance. And it might embolden the
> working class to ask
> for more. The low level of expectations among
> American workers is one
> of the great victories of the bourgeoisie - it took
> more than a
> century to get here, and they're not going to risk
> any retreat.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

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