A page-one story in today’s New York Times says that the high cost of health insurance—estimated at about $3000 per worker—is keeping companies from adding new workers even as their business picks up.

Now logically, you’d think that big business would be responding to this crisis the way it usually responds to a crisis—by demanding that the government pick up the tab. In fact, that’s exactly what governments in Canada and most of Europe and Japan have done. They have socialized health care, removing that cost entirely from employers.

Why doesn’t that happen here? Big business got the government to socialize the costs of hazardous waste clean-up. It got government to socialize the cost of transporting raw materials and finished products through the railroads and highway network. As big companies abandon their pension plans, leaving people to survive after retirement on their meager Social Security checks, it’s even socializing the pension program. So why the resistance to socializing health care?

In large part, I think it’s pure ideology. Socializing transportation made sense to the corporate elite because it’s basically a matter of government doing something that directly helps them and boosts profits. Socializing hazardous waste clean-up made sense because having to pay for their misdeeds themselves could bankrupt many companies. But socializing healthcare would be getting the government to do something that primarily would directly benefit the people, and only indirectly benefit companies.

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Socialized medicine is a direct subsidy to workers, making them less reliant on the company (or the union if it's the union running the hmo). Just think of it as money.

Would business support a direct payment of $3,000 to people, so they could buy insurance? Of course not. The people would have one less reason to fear unemployment.

That's also why some ideologists for business argue against the minimum wage. They argue that eliminating the MW would create jobs.

They're full of hot air, because what it would really increase is starvation, first, then create jobs, second, when people were so close to starving that they'd take less money for their labor. It would all happen so quickly that it would be hard for these "economists" to discern that's what's happening, unless you happened to be a working person ready to starve... then it'd be crystal clear.

Socialized medicine only helps business if business operators agree that it's valuable to "raise the living standard" for all people, so that they could feel okay about paying low wages, because people are taken care of.

Unfortunately, there are far too many businesses that really don't give a flying fuck if you suffer. They've become greedy and stone-hearted. They've even fostered a "tough shit, loser" ideology to justify their avarice. They demand to pay as little as possible.

national health care is a great first step in the struggle. one big problem i forsee would be the insurance companies whining about the massive loss of policy revenue they would incur when the government single payor takes over. although i would love to see insurance companies hung out to dry, it seems unlikely that they would allow national health care legislation without a big fight, unless they were somehow remunerated. anybody have any thoughts?