Andrea Batista Schlesinger
Corporations Gone Wild
Spiraling gas prices, skyrocketing CEO salaries: we live in an age of Corporations Gone Wild! So why is it that when I first learned about the Fair Share Health Care legislation passing around the country I thought -- is this really the right strategy?
Of course it's wrong that big companies get away with choosing not to offer their workers health insurance, leaving those very same workers to turn to public hospitals and Medicaid for health care, and leaving regular working people like me to pay the bill while the companies' profits go through the roof.
In this changing economy, is it really wise to pursue employer-based solutions? I mean, as progressives, aren't we supposed to be advocating for a single payer system in which every individual has access to care no matter where they work?
Looks like I wasn't the only one with questions. Readers of the DMIblog debated the merits of Fair Share among themselves. For example:
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I worry that employer-based health care is a dead end. While the WFP effort (and its MD model) is very good, it seems limited. Look at, for example, the General Motors health plans which, it seems, play a signficant part in the non-profitability of the Corp.Especially since, as a practical matter, people change jobs a lot -- portable comprehensive insurance which has no "pre-existing condition" exceptions
may be more viable.As I see it, single payer non-employer coverage has the best chance of providing, universal, affordable, comprehensive coverage.
Posted by: Daniel Millstone | April 28, 2006 02:28 PM
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Here's my take though Daniel. If we want anything to happen we need to force corporations to feel the pain. The only force that would make the federal government actually do national universal health care is if the corporations tell them to.The only way the corporations will tell them to do that is if the corporations suffer under the yoke of high health care costs for their employees. Right now the corps only pass the pain on to their workers and onto taxpayers.
If we make the corporations accountable for paying for their own workers the corporations will finally get off their fatted-asses and scream to the government for a universal plan.
Posted by: ann on | April 28, 2006 04:21 PM
Posted at 11:51 AM, May 05, 2006 in Government Accountability | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)








Comments
I think that mandatory employer provided healthcare is a fantastic idea. Living wage, fair share, and other employer aimed measures are sometimes more effective than centralized government efforts at redistributing wealth. Consider it this way, with centralized efforts those who pay the most taxes bear the greatest burden of the cost. However, corporate entities have developed legislative strategies that allow them to pass much of their tax burden to the middle class. Ultimately the people that bear much of the burden of the centralized effort are the middle class. This is an improvement over placing the burdens "where they fall" on the poor, but it is not the best solution.
Corporate responsibility efforts place the primary cost for providing services on the enterprise itself, on the employer, the corporation. When a corporation employs someone, they must provide them with enough to survive and continue working; when government provides basic services to the employed it is actually subsidizing the employers! Government should set the standards of living and force the employers to provide them, rather than subsidizing the employers indirectly by lowering the compensation they can get away with.
When people can provide for themselves, they get a sense of freedom, dignity, and power.
More importantly, fair share redistributes from the corporate fiction to the working class. The best central services can do is redistribute from the tax base (middle class) to the lowest classes.
Posted by: lb | May 5, 2006 04:05 PM
O.K. They are out of the woods, pushing their Social Darwinist garbage, hoping the people will be forever so dumb that they will be buying this Orwellian nonsense: "When people can provide for themselves, they get a sense of freedom, dignity, and power?"
In this fascist reality people cannot provide for themselves, only fascists can.
"When a corporation employs someone, they must provide them with enough to survive and continue working"
We all know it is not true, corporations at this point behave like labor camps: you work until you can ... then next, next, next.
Lb, I suggest your masters send someone better to push their agenda
Posted by: eurogem | June 3, 2006 09:15 AM
I don't use words lightly.
In my post, I used the "word" fascism a couple of times, because I just tried to describe reality, see below.
One of the description of early fascism
POWERFUL AND CONTINUING NATIONALISM
DISDAIN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMIES AS A UNIFYING CAUSE
SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY
RAMPANT SEXISM
BULLYING AND MOBBING
CONTROLLED MASS MEDIA
OBSESSION WITH NATIONAL SECURITY
RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT INTERTWINED
CORPORATE POWER PROTECTED
LABOR POWER SUPPRESSED
DISDAIN FOR INTELLECTUALS AND THE ARTS
OBSESSION WITH CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
RAMPANT CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION
FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS
Posted by: eurogem | June 3, 2006 09:27 AM