wroteDennis Tester Mac-Groveland
So if the U.S. Congress passes a universal health care bill, ala HillaryCare, whereby the people will have their medical expenses paid for by the government, that will let corporate america off the hook ... having the exact opposite affect that you want!
Actually, I would encourage a universal health care bill. Health coverage should NOT be at the whim of the employer. Not to mention that the cost of government running the payout consistantly operates at between 1% and 5% compared to HMOs and insurance companies that have overheads of between 25% and 40%. Think of what we spend on health care now and what we could do by saving 20% to 30%. It would be more than enough to cover everyone and let corporations off the hook. Think what they would save by not having to devote HR personnel to continually dealing with the myriad of current health care providers.
But until we pass such a bill, we have chosen as a society to rely on employer based coverage. When an employer fails to uphold its end of this social contract then we pick up the tab for their employees on the public dole. And why doesn't the company cover them? To save the expense and show a larger bottom line. So that is why I call it a "Reimbursement" bill rather than a tax because we are then subsidizing their profits at public expense.
wroteDennis Tester Mac-Groveland
And there's no "profit incentive" for underpaying and/or underbenefiting employees ... my previous employers found that out the hard way when I regularly left for better offers.
I wrote
If someone like Wal-Mart tries to pull a Rubbermaid in Minnesota--telling a company to fold their US plants and open up in China--the state will slap a surcharge on the Wal-Mart type business for state expenditures in retraining the employees who have been outsourced as well as for any welfare they need until they find an equivilant job to the one they had.
respondedDennis Tester Mac-Groveland
Do you think this policy would ENcourage or DIScourage companies from opening up plants in the state in the first place? Having the government trying to dictate how a private enterprise will be run (via taxation, regulation and litigation), is the primary reason why they're going overseas in the first place, because I don't know what that is, but it ain't capitalism.
So having Wal-Mart dictate to RubberMaid is better? Telling a corporation to move its operation to another country and throw its workforce out on the street so THEY can show a larger profit is the way this country should run?
I think any state that could guarantee a company its right to set its own prices to cover its own expenses and NOT be forced by a third party--no matter how big it is--to step aside from its own obligations to the community in which it operates so the third party can add a couple of decimal points to its dividend, would be a good incentive for companies to come to that state.
Steven M Nelson
Willard Hay
http://citizenshipchronicles.blogspot.com/
Get UP! Get OUT! & GET INVOLVED!!!
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