WurfWhile

“As GM goes, so goes the nation”

You might want to read what I just wrote about single-payer health care, where I mention its importance to our economic competitiveness.

The Detroit News reports General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner outlined cuts today, including

“Cutting health-care coverage effective Jan. 1, 2009 for Medicare-eligible salaried retirees, partially offset by increased pension payments.
….
Wagoner also said GM would defer until 2010 its payments to the UAW-run health-care trust agreed upon in last fall’s contract negotiations, saving $1.7 billion.”

GM had promised its retirees 100% health care coverage in many cases – and now the company has essentially given up its health care responsibility to non-union retirees and given it to the United States. The future of the UAW-run health-care trust, which GM will defer promised payments to now, looks even less rosy than it originally did – and it wasn’t an easy sell from the start.

I’d like to think that as a country we’d make a moral statement by having health care for all, but economically we’re getting closer to the point where we’re likely to do it regardless of the morality. Business just will not pay for it anymore.