TW: Companies that's who. I believe it has finally sunk into CEOs after years of extraordinary health care cost inflation that our system is failing and deeply flawed. In a globalized world a U.S. system which burdens private companies with health care costs while international firms use nationalized health care is a real disadvantage (exhibit A the implosion of our auto industry). These attitudes will lead to reform not because they are suddenly progressive or Democrats but because it makes business sense. By the way tossing responsibility for some health care costs into public hands will not solve the problems, merely move them but it is part of the needed process.
From Business Week:
"...'I've worked in the employer-based market for 35 years, and it's bizarre that CEOs continue to support this system,' says Robert Laszewski, president of consultants Health Policy & Strategy Associates.
But perhaps they really don't. Health reform experts say many CEOs would secretly love the federal government to take on the burden--and some don't bother to hide it. "There are employers that don't want the responsibility, and we are in that category," says Carl T. Camden, CEO of Kelly Services. Managing insurance for his vast, geographically dispersed workforce of temporary workers is horrendously expensive, he complains: "My health-care costs total more than my profits."
Insurance premiums charged to employers have soared 119% over the past decade, four times faster than wage increases. Mercer Consulting...estimates that 46% of employers plan to shift more health costs to employees in 2010.
...in private, "CEOs overwhelmingly want out of this business," says Benjamin Sasse, an Assistant Secretary of Health & Human Services under President George W. Bush... "They just do not want to be seen as more willing to dump [benefits] than their competitors are." Sasse says many CEOs he has talked with would even pay a new tax if it got them out of the insurance business.
...Plenty of CEOs continue to support the status quo, of course, despite the drawbacks. "A lot of businesses take the approach that 'this is a lousy system, but we're good at it,' " says Joseph J. Minarik, research director for the Committee for Economic Development, a Washington think tank. "I interpret this as, 'I've got the best stateroom on the Titanic, and I'm not moving.' "
Democratic senators are calling for a new, federally funded insurer that would expand coverage by competing with private health insurers. Although insurance companies hate the idea, opposition from other businesses has been muted, even though this "public option" is characterized by Republican lawmakers as the first step toward a government-run system. "CEOs are focused on the bottom line," says Len Nichols, director of health policy at the New America Foundation, another think tank. "They know high health-care costs put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage."
James Hagedorn, CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro, describes himself as a conservative. Nevertheless, he sees much to like in the national health systems of Europe. "If someone said to me, 'you can pay the same amount [for health care] and we will redeploy to a national system,' I'm fine," he says. "Why would I argue with that?"
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_20/b4131023543934.htm?chan=magazine+channel_news
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