Canada, that’s who.
And this Canuck loves Dave Lindorff for pointing out why what’s good for Canada is good for General Motors.
Lindorff is the author of Marketplace Medicine: The Rise of the For-Profit Hospital Chains–a quietly shocking piece of investigative journalism that shows how capitalism has undermined the public good by its own profiteering, and how so-called neo-liberalism is certainly neo-something…but liberal, it’s definitely not.
And worse, it’s undermining business in America. Employers are forced to either pay obscene amounts in health insurance for their employees, or to scrimp and save at the expense of the employees’ well-being. The result is an unholy mess, and it’s driving some manufacturers out of America and across the border…
…but not into Mexico. Try the NORTHERN border, sugarmaple. Canada’s “socialized” healthcare system (non-profit, single-payer, with hospitals run by local organizations as private non-profits) is the unspoken envy of America. Because GM doesn’t have to pay extra for health insurance here, Canada is attractive to the car manufacturer; made-in-Canada vehicles are every bit as well made as those produced in the States, but the cost is lower because there’s no healthcare premium figured in.
Meanwhile, here’s the flipside of the coin: how “unfettered capitalism” is its own worst enemy. Enjoy, enjoy! (I know I do. But the mainstream media is strangely silent about the president under whom this debacle is happening…something they wouldn’t have been if this had happened ten years ago under a different president.)
