Chapter Two in a series on promoting universal health care.
So Detroit has hit the skids now, and is seeking a bail-out.
Much has been made of how American automakers are at a disadvantage because they have to deal with the powerful United Automobile Workers union. I suspect that it's mostly a crock -- does anyone think unions are restrained in Germany?
But there is one thing about American automakers that makes them significantly different from most of their overseas competitors: they operate in an economy where a significant part of the population does not have health insurance. In practice, these means that American automakers -- who provide their workers and most retirees with health insurance -- are subsidizing emergency care for the uninsured. You see, we really have socialized medicine already; it's just that it's socialized in a haphazard, completely inefficient way that provides very little benefit for huge costs.
So, Detroit is failing, and it has its hand out.
It has long been discussed, among the few dozens of people who are interested in such things, that nationalizing health care would be a bonanza for automakers and for other old-line industries with legacy medical costs for prior employees.
Hopefully, there will be a strong push in the Obama Administration, if not before, to nationalize health care as part of the "save Detroit" mission. I wouldn't expect that the Detroit angle would be enough to get sane health care enacted into law, but the entrenched ideologues who oppose nationalizing health care should be brutally beaten with the fact that their policies have helped to cripple American automaking and American industry.