Wal-Mart tells it like it is
LEIGH POMEROY
Once upon a time, in order to be chartered corporations had to pledge to serve the public interest. Unfortunately, that commitment has long since gone out the window. Now corporations need only serve in their own best interests, which sometimes benefits their stockholders, sometimes their employees, sometimes the communities in which they operate, and sometimes their country and the world at large. But there is no rule that says they have to.
If Wal-Mart exists only to serve its own interests, and what it does is legal, who can blame it?
This is one reason why we have government, which in a democracy should represent and serve the people. When the people decide that corporations or any other entities are acting contrary to their interests, then government, as their representative, should step in.
Corporations and their supporters that howl "Restraint of free trade!" to this premise need to remember three things:
That the U.S. is alone among industrialized nations in tying health care and health insurance to employment is an economic reality that grew out of government wage controls during World War II. It is a system that has been cobbled together much like Frankenstein's monster, made from bits and pieces dug up out of practicality, not out of any long-range plan.
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott was correct in saying, "The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees." We're seeing this not only with Wal-Mart, but with all economic players, large (the auto and airline industries, for example) and small alike.
No amount of governmental shenanigans, like forcing Wal-Mart to provide health insurance or creating economically complex and highly iffy HSAs, will stem the health care delivery and payment crisis. There is only one solution: Look at which countries and societies offer their citizens the best health care at the most reasonable price, use that system as a starting point, and then incorporate into it those uniquely great parts of our system that work well.
Winston Churchill once said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing... after they have exhausted all other possibilities." In terms of our health care payment system, America has exhausted all other possibilities. It is now time to do the right thing.
For more information, see:
"Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right." - Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago ArchdioceseFrom the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 03/01/2006:
Amid all its squirming, obfuscating and evasion over its crummy health benefits, Wal-Mart put its finger on an undeniable truth:A lot of blame has been heaped on Wal-Mart for decimating downtown areas of small-town America, paying substandard wages, and not providing health insurance for all its workers. What critics usually won't admit, however, is that Wal-Mart is only taking advantage of existing economic opportunities in the current climate of "free market" exaltation.
"The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees," said CEO Lee Scott last week.
He is 100-percent right. Our nation's system of employment-based health insurance, which covers only about six in 10 Americans, is headed for implosion.
Once upon a time, in order to be chartered corporations had to pledge to serve the public interest. Unfortunately, that commitment has long since gone out the window. Now corporations need only serve in their own best interests, which sometimes benefits their stockholders, sometimes their employees, sometimes the communities in which they operate, and sometimes their country and the world at large. But there is no rule that says they have to.
If Wal-Mart exists only to serve its own interests, and what it does is legal, who can blame it?
This is one reason why we have government, which in a democracy should represent and serve the people. When the people decide that corporations or any other entities are acting contrary to their interests, then government, as their representative, should step in.
Corporations and their supporters that howl "Restraint of free trade!" to this premise need to remember three things:
- Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is a "free market" guaranteed.
- The concept of the "free market" is simply one of many economic theories.
- Corporations are chartered by governmental entities. They exist merely at the pleasure of the government. If the government chooses to ban all corporations, it theoretically could, assuming that the Supreme Court would give up its silly notion that corporations are people.
That the U.S. is alone among industrialized nations in tying health care and health insurance to employment is an economic reality that grew out of government wage controls during World War II. It is a system that has been cobbled together much like Frankenstein's monster, made from bits and pieces dug up out of practicality, not out of any long-range plan.
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott was correct in saying, "The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees." We're seeing this not only with Wal-Mart, but with all economic players, large (the auto and airline industries, for example) and small alike.
No amount of governmental shenanigans, like forcing Wal-Mart to provide health insurance or creating economically complex and highly iffy HSAs, will stem the health care delivery and payment crisis. There is only one solution: Look at which countries and societies offer their citizens the best health care at the most reasonable price, use that system as a starting point, and then incorporate into it those uniquely great parts of our system that work well.
Winston Churchill once said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing... after they have exhausted all other possibilities." In terms of our health care payment system, America has exhausted all other possibilities. It is now time to do the right thing.
For more information, see:
- "Wal-Mart tells it like it is" from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- "Today's good idea can bring tomorrow's bad result" from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
- "Health Savings Accounts Won’t Work for Workers" from the AFL-CIO
- "CEOs like universal health insurance" from the Boston Globe
- "The Moral-Hazard Myth: The Bad Idea Behind Our Failed Health-Care System" by Malcolm Gladwell
- Physicians for a National Health Program
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home