Anyone who has been paying even a teeny bit of attention to the problems plaguing American auto companies knows that their No. 1 financial problem is the cost of health insurance. There's even concern that General Motors will find itself filing for bankruptcy if it can't get its UAW workers to pick up a larger share of health insurance costs.

That's a problem that has beset more and more American businesses in recent years as the cost of health care far outstrips inflation and the ability of companies to pass those costs to consumers.

So, if you're Toyota, why wouldn't you spurn generous offers from U.S. cities and locate in Canada, where the government provides everyone with health insurance?

Even General Motors, which operates several plants in Canada, has been lobbying the Canadians not to change their universal health plan, an idea that surfaces in Canadian politics from time to time. GM and other corporations like it just the way it is, thank you.

Obviously, Canadian health insurance isn't free to the companies. They pay higher taxes to help foot the overall bill. Nevertheless, their total costs are far lower than what they pay for health insurance plans in the United States, where the cost of administration to pay for the private interests in our convoluted system reach more than 20 percent of the total bill. That money alone could help kick-start national health insurance in our own country.

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, pointed out the other day that the result of all this is to give Canada more jobs in industries like auto companies, which in the U.S. pay health benefits to workers, and fewer jobs in industries that don't provide those benefits. In the U.S. the effect is just the opposite: fewer jobs with benefits, more jobs without because the incentive to go out of the country isn't as great for those who don't provide health benefits.

Meanwhile, as the number of uninsured workers increases in the U.S., the American taxpayer is forced to pick up more and more of the tab for the poorest of those uninsured through programs like Medicaid. It's a vicious circle.

Someday we're going to face the facts. The argument over a national health program is no longer whether it amounts to "socialized" medicine in the capitalist U.S. It's now whether our refusal to enact a national system - Medicare, for example, for all - is going to wind up devastating our economy.

Dave Zweifel has been editor of The Capital Times since 1983. A native of New Glarus, Wis. and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his life-long goal was to be the editor of this newspaper.

© 2005 Capital Times

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