[lbo-talk] corps & single-payer

[andie nachgeborenen]

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
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> 

		
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