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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (6971)	2/9/2005 12:31:02 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 361480

But from what I understand, Rove was and is against the Iraq misadventure that Cheney, RumDumb and Wolfman dragged the nation into. So, that may be slightly helpful to the rest of the world and our troops. However, his internal politics are still of paramount danger to American freedom.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (6971)	2/9/2005 12:42:53 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 361480

Interesting take on US health care: Health-Care Overhaul: GM CEO Weighs In General Motors Chief Executive Rick Wagoner has lots to worry about. The company's U.S. auto profits are expected to fall by half this year. GM bonds could be downgraded to junk. It is embroiled in a potentially very costly dispute with its partner, Fiat. And buyers are demanding Hummer-sized discounts, reducing profit per car to just over $200 -- the cost of a scalped seat at a Detroit Pistons game. So what will Mr. Wagoner talk about when he appears at the Chicago Economic Club tomorrow? None of the above. Instead, he'll focus on fixing the U.S. health-care system. Cynics may see this as a bid for a government bailout. And the cynics have a point. The Medicare Modernization Act provided GM with some $500 million in prescription-drug subsidies last year, accounting for roughly half the company's North American auto profits. More of that medicine couldn't hurt. But give Mr. Wagoner some credit. He runs not only the world's largest auto maker (a position threatened by Toyota Motor), but also the nation's largest private health-care purchaser (a position threatened by no one.) He's responsible for the health of some 1.1 million people, most of them retirees and their families, and paid $5.2 billion last year for the privilege. The cost of health care now adds more than $1,500 to every vehicle sold, and is rising at double-digit rates. So it's no surprise that health care has become Mr. Wagoner's obsession. He's taken the maxim attributed to Charlie Wilson -- "What's good for General Motors is good for America" -- and turned it inside out. To cure what ails General Motors, he has to cure what ails America: a very sick health-care system. "It's not that manufacturing cars and trucks, and quality and productivity, are not important," Mr. Wagoner said in an interview this week. "But we have processes in place to deal with those." The health-care system, on the other hand, reminds him of the General Motors of old, with pockets of excellence but also wastelands of inefficiency. "We can do better as a country than we are doing," he says. "We can have higher-quality services supplied at a lower cost." He's right about that. The U.S. spends a fortune on health care -- 15% of its total output, compared with 10% in Germany and 8% in Japan. But it gets a lousy return on that money. Forty-five million Americans lack health insurance. And errors are frequent: Recent studies show adults who visit a doctor or a hospital get what experts recommend as the best treatment only about half the time. Curing the problem won't be easy -- which may be why the White House has put it on a back burner. Most analysts agree that fixing health care ultimately is more important to the nation's future than overhauling Social Security, rewriting the tax code or cutting discretionary spending. But Mr. Bush wrestled with health care in his first term, and has decided to give these other issues top billing in his second. That means there's little chance he'll have the time or energy to give serious attention to health care again before leaving office. If costs continue to rise at their current pace, however, you can expect Mr. Wagoner and his business buddies to join forces with beleaguered state governors and insist that health care become the issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Wagoner opposes the ultimate bailout, a government-run national health-insurance system, which would take the cost off the back of big business but put control in the hands of a government bureaucracy. Instead, he favors a consumer-driven, competitive marketplace, with better health-care information systems, better research on the clinical effectiveness of different drugs and therapies, and better information on the quality of care available to consumers. He also favors curbs on malpractice suits, and a "bipartisan national strategy to address catastrophic health-care expenses." (That could turn into a partial bailout for GM.) However, most experts believe a consumer-driven health-care system such as the one envisioned by Mr. Wagoner would work only if consumers have more skin in the game. They need to have an incentive to shop for cost-effective care. General Motors helped create a system in which large employers shielded workers from those costs. Now it has to lead the way toward remaking that system. That means taking a tough line with the unions, who militantly oppose rollbacks of their health-care coverage. Mr. Wagoner is right to put this issue on the national agenda. But he also has more work to do at home. wsj.com