in the 80's and early 90's I would have agreed with you but i think American cars have come a long way since then. Of course I do wish they would just completely embrace the japanese philosphy of building quality cars with as few parts (and impediments) as possible.

I own a Ford. It's a solid, efficient, reliable car that handles well and performs far better than something of its size and engine power should.

Of course, it's a Ford Aspire, and Kia made it FOR Ford before they started marketing vehicles under their own name.

I've thought for a long time that it's remarkable that so many government officials (most but not all Republicans, and for that matter most but not all of them Republicans) think government should keep its hands out of the business of businesses, yet as soon as a major corporation is in danger of failing they implore Congress to bail them out of whatever financial hardship they'd gotten themselves into. Whenther they make a good product or not is irrelevant, in my opinion; the fact that (mostly) Republicans aren't following their own rules just smacks of hypocricy, and that needs to end. And

You could argue, reasonably I think, that CEOs over the last 2 decades have had an active incentive to push the true cost of many aspects of business to as far in the future as possible thus encouraging them to get as much as then can as fast as they can.

On top of that I think it is common to have a perception of CEO's as hero/god-king and not just someone who is doing a very specialized job. This warps many aspect surrounding the CEO which further hinder the CEO from doing a good job. It is natural to listen more to your own opinion then someone else when you are The Saviour.

Or to sum up: While the situation of Japanese vs. American car makers might not be totally identical, the cultural differences surrounding CEOs and executives in general( in part represented by compensation) has not only certainly made nearly as much difference as deals that were made 20 and 30 years ago but almost certainly exacerbated those very problems.

or,again, so it seems to me.

Now here's where it gets interesting from my point of view.

First a disclaimer - I live in the United Kingdom, where we have free healthcare via a National Health Service. It costs us quite a bit; it's one of the largest employers in the country (employing over half a million people directly), and cost us 68.7 billion pounds in the 2003-4 fiscal year alone.
Which, for a country of 59 million people, makes for a pretty impressive set of stats I think.

So, the question is simply this:
What is stopping companies like Ford from instead pressing for a free National (Whoops, sorry, Federal of course - forgot about the US political system!) Health Service in the US? Because by the sounds of it, one of the reasons that foreign companies have a competitive edge is that they have different healthcare costs. If Ford were able to offload those costs onto the populace as a whole, via federal government, then they could regain a little competitive edge.
And it would benefit society as a whole anyway, of course. So it can't possibly be a bad move "in the community". They could get their muscle behind healthcare reform, along with other US industries that have similar problems. Once adequate healthcare is a right provided by the state, there's no need for their union-agree contracts. Renegotiate, to trim down the costs, and back comes your competitive advantage...

It's only tackling a small part of the problems that Ford has. But I was just wondering why nobody has made this part of the argument for healthcare reform.

Then again, much of American politics (and occasionally economics) just doesn't make sense to me anyway. But I look forward to enlightenment, if you feel you can bestow it. ;-)

Ah, then I stand corrected - evidently Ford et al. aren't quite as dumb as I thought they were. ;-)

I share your confidence on who's right and who's wrong, but I'm guessing you knew that already. Personally, I cannot comprehend why we should allow a profit to be made on the essential services that help hold our society together. Not-for-profit trusts seem to be the lesser of all evils, based on my experience - but that only extends to housing and healthcare.

The idea of privatised police is just scarey.

Someone should mention to the Democrats that they'll have great difficulty getting any power whilst they oppose healthcare reforms, by the way. Most people I know in America who'd consider themselves Democrats would disagree with that coalition.
I'll mention it to them next time we speak. Every little helps, and all that!

By the way, your LJ is quite often fascinating. Thank you very much! :-)

There are reasons that the company I work for administers Medicaid plans. While I agree that single payer healthcare is a good idea (tm), I also know that healthcare administration with any plan that pays 100% is not really good. The base health fund for preventative care should be no copay for 4 visits with a generic family practicioner, and additional benefit should have a cost competitive copay. The main reason benefits have copayments is that on the back end, the average insurance claim can take up to 30 days to pay. Working for a 10 copay an hour, particularly in the mental health arena, then having to take the time to bill or pay someone to bill the charges, and have to wait for payment so that you can pay rent is not something a lot of providers want to do. This is part of the reason a number of providers opt out of HMO or PPO plans, as they need to get paid for the services they do, and they don't want to hold harmless the patient for payment of the services.

Basic benefits and administration should be cost-neutral for the patient. I honestly think there should be buy-on, secondary insurance, and I can see the insurance industry stepping into that suplemental role. The margins will be narrower, sure, but it needs to happen. It's not like the entire industry doesn't have procedures in place to handle secondary insurance roles.

Do you mean that Democratic leaders run like scared rabbits from any suggestion of economic heresy? Or do you mean that they actively oppose single-payer health care?

The former - even over here, nobody uses "proper" billions. A Billion is a thousand millions, no matter how much more appealing it is to have a billion be a million millions... *sighs*

The NHS is pretty good value. But we don't get everything free. As a full-time employee with a good wage, I don't get prescription drugs for free for instance. If I were unemployed and on housing benefit, then I would get a substantial discount - or even free, I think. I'm not sure - I've not been unemployed for a while!

Our approach to healthcare is pragmatic. Broken limbs get dealt with on the NHS, and you get basic physiotherapy to assist the recovery. But basic is the key word. If you want intensive/extensive physiotherapy, then you'll have to go private and pay for it.

So yes, we pay for less per head - but bear in mind that we might be getting less as well, depending on what exactly you were paying out for. If I want any cosmetic treatments - surgery or dental - then I'll have to pay for that anyway. But if I need my tonsils or appendix out, then the NHS will likely be my first port of call.

Private healthcare is popular here to avoid waiting lists - which can be as long as six months (or longer! for "mild irritations" and non-life threatening conditions; it's also popular as a way of just getting more pampered or getting your own room rather than sitting in a ward. You pay your money, you take your choice - but you get no rebate on your taxes if you decide to "relieve the NHS of the burden of your treatment".
Personally, I believe that's the correct thing to do. The NHS is for everyone, and if you chose to opt out and pay someone then you should still be paying for the NHS anyway - because next year, you might not be able to afford to opt out, and it'll still be there for you. Maintenance bills will be there regardless of your decisions...
It's the healthcare safety net of our society, so everyone should contribute to its upkeep.

Finally, a note on the line between NHS and private treatment:
A friend of mine recently went private, at great expense to herself, because she just couldn't wait. (It was a hand injury, and she didn't like feeling helpless like that.) Yet all that did was buy the same NHS consultant's time RIGHT NOW, rather than in three months. It sounds odd, but it makes sense in a way. I can't say I'm absolutely thrilled with it - I dislike the idea that someone should have to wait three months for specialist hand/wrist surgery. But at least it shows that the NHS is more under a budget constraint than a skills one...

There is no healthcare panacea. But there should at least be a minimum provision for the whole of society. For America, deciding to have healthcare for all will actually be the easy part. What that level is will be where the really big fights occur, believe me!

An excellent clarification. As you probably spotted, I'm vague on the exact details of prescriptions - mostly because I'm healthy enough to have not needed any for ages.

Thank you for wallpapering over the cracks in my knowledge! :-)

Interesting. The most expensive generic drugs here are still only about $20, though.

I don't have anything more than anecdotal evidence, but it's been my feeling for a long time that the excess costs associated with the American medical system are at least in part due to general overvaluation of services. When a 20 minute office visit to a specialist costs $500+, something is very wrong. I certainly think that doctors should be well paid, but there is big gap between being well paid and what some of the doctors in the US receive. A friend's father is a doctor in Madrid. He makes very good money, but nothing near the amount he would make in the US.

n/t

The costs that are doing in the US firms aren't legislated, they're the result of specific contracts with their unions. The new factories run by the foreign carmakers have different, and far less expensive contracts with younger and cheaper workforces.

As you've given the matter some scrutiny, perhaps you can answer some questions I've been asking myself lately.

Do you happen to have a source or two that might show the difference in expenditures between the two blocs? I'd be interested in seeing just how much less they can offer and still avoid unionization.

Also, do you happen to know what the total combined burden of the unionized workforce at those companies costs, per year, versus the cost of the top-tier executives? I'd be interested in seeing how those compare.

Ah, but how many of those "few hundred folks who have busted their asses for the company" have golfed with the people making firing decisions? Have a sense of priorities, man!

Today, Toyota is an American automotive manufacturer. They have numerous factories in Mexico, the US, and Canada. When you drive past a Toyota dealership and see a Camry or a Tundra, for example, you're looking at a car that was Made In America (as much as any Ford or Chevy is).

Mm. Yeah, but he probably got it from you now that I think of it.

You know, it's not impossible that I know that person (and maybe picked up the phrase from him back then). Three of the guys I went to high school with ran BBS's back then, and among our group, that particular catch-phrase was ubiquitous. Sadly, I can't mention any real names (LJ regs), but I'm quite curious.