Universal Healthcare Is Good For Business and the Economy

As a general rule, Republicans oppose the idea of universal healthcare. They point to anecdotes of Canadians traveling to the United States for medical treatments like transplant surgery. It is claimed that the reason the Canadians have to travel to the United States is because the list for the surgery is too long in Canada due to the universal health coverage. It is unlikely that the reason the people are not receiving kidney transplants is due to the health care system. It is more likely that a population of approximately 30 million people does not have the necessary number of transplantable organs available to accommodate all of the people who are in need of them. In contrast the United States, with approximately ten time the population, is more likely to have organs that match the patient’s criteria.

What the GOP does not point out, and the Democrats do not seem to be doing any better in showing, is that universal healthcare would be good for the economy and benefit businesses. This benefit is a reason that should be put front and center in the argument for universal healthcare.

General Motors recently settled a labor contract with the United Auto Workers. One of the sticking points for the agreement was the amount of money that the employees were going to pay for their healthcare coverage. The UAW agreed to begin paying toward their own healthcare coverage. This is the first time the UAW workers have had to pay anything toward their healthcare insurance. However, GM is still at a severe disadvantage compared to its competition. GM pays approximately $4 billion per year in medical health insurance for its employees. This is a significant amount of money that its competitors, such as Toyota, are not paying. The result is that Toyota is able to spend the money it is saving on research and development and on other areas which make it more competitive and the dominant car company.

Companies like GM should be in the forefront of lobbing for universal health care. Their taxes would go up, but they would shed the burden of paying healthcare costs. They would stop having to extend labor negotiations due to differences in how much the employer and the employee are each going to contribute to healthcare costs. The bottom line is it will save money by having the country go to universal healthcare and those savings can go to becoming more competitive against their international competitors.

Some companies have already determined that healthcare costs are so high that they cannot remain competitive if they pay the high cost. Wal-Mart is famous for avoiding having to pay healthcare costs for its employees. Among the ways it does this is keeping employees’ hours lower than is required for eligibility for healthcare coverage. Wal-Mart also provides its employees information as to how to get onto public assistance for healthcare coverage, which raises the cost to the government for having Wal-Mart continue to grow and place its box stores in communities. Wal-Mart engages in a number of other cost cutting methodologies, but not paying healthcare costs is one major one which saves it a substantial amount of money.

To avoid making our companies uncompetitive to international competition or having companies circumvent providing healthcare coverage all together, the United States needs to implement a universal healthcare system. The cost will fall onto the shoulders of everyone: Corporations and individuals. The tax increase will likely be more than offset by the savings gained from ceasing to pay for healthcare coverage.

The political party that claims it is pro-business should be the party that is out front on this issue. The country will not be competitive in the world marketplace until universal healthcare is instituted and failure to be competitive is bad for the economy.