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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (270182)	1/27/2006 7:59:08 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1577903

How much would GM contribute to the start up of universal health care to unload that potion of their future obligation? Universal health care would probably "save" GM, and would make a lot of US companies more competitive... Health Care Confidential By PAUL KRUGMAN American health care is desperately in need of reform. But what form should change take? Are there any useful examples we can turn to for guidance? Well, I know about a health care system that has been highly successful in containing costs, yet provides excellent care. And the story of this system's success provides a helpful corrective to anti-government ideology. For the government doesn't just pay the bills in this system — it runs the hospitals and clinics. No, I'm not talking about some faraway country. The system in question is our very own Veterans Health Administration, whose success story is one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate. In the 1980's and early 1990's, says an article in The American Journal of Managed Care, the V.H.A. "had a tarnished reputation of bureaucracy, inefficiency and mediocre care." But reforms beginning in the mid-1990's transformed the system, and "the V.A.'s success in improving quality, safety and value," the article says, "have allowed it to emerge as an increasingly recognized leader in health care." Last year customer satisfaction with the veterans' health system, as measured by an annual survey conducted by the National Quality Research Center, exceeded that for private health care for the sixth year in a row. This high level of quality (which is also verified by objective measures of performance) was achieved without big budget increases. In fact, the veterans' system has managed to avoid much of the huge cost surge that has plagued the rest of U.S. medicine. How does the V.H.A. do it? The secret of its success is the fact that it's a universal, integrated system. Because it covers all veterans, the system doesn't need to employ legions of administrative staff to check patients' coverage and demand payment from their insurance companies. Because it's integrated, providing all forms of medical care, it has been able to take the lead in electronic record-keeping and other innovations that reduce costs, ensure effective treatment and help prevent medical errors. Moreover, the V.H.A., as Phillip Longman put it in The Washington Monthly, "has nearly a lifetime relationship with its patients." As a result, it "actually has an incentive to invest in prevention and more effective disease management. When it does so, it isn't just saving money for somebody else. It's maximizing its own resources. ... In short, it can do what the rest of the health care sector can't seem to, which is to pursue quality systematically without threatening its own financial viability." Oh, and one more thing: the veterans health system bargains hard with medical suppliers, and pays far less for drugs than most private insurers. I don't want to idealize the veterans' system. In fact, there's reason to be concerned about its future: will it be given the resources it needs to cope with the flood of wounded and traumatized veterans from Iraq? But the transformation of the V.H.A. is clearly the most encouraging health policy story of the past decade. So why haven't you heard about it? The answer, I believe, is that pundits and policy makers don't talk about the veterans' system because they can't handle the cognitive dissonance. (One prominent commentator started yelling at me when I tried to describe the system's successes in a private conversation.) For the lesson of the V.H.A.'s success story — that a government agency can deliver better care at lower cost than the private sector — runs completely counter to the pro-privatization, anti-government conventional wisdom that dominates today's Washington. The dissonance between the dominant ideology and the realities of health care is one reason the Medicare drug legislation looks as if someone went down a checklist of things the veterans' system does right, and in each case did the opposite. For example, the V.H.A. avoids dealing with insurance companies; the drug bill shoehorns insurance companies into the program, even though they serve no real function. The V.H.A. bargains effectively on drug prices; the drug bill forbids Medicare from doing the same. Still, ideology can't hold out against reality forever. Cries of "socialized medicine" didn't, in the end, succeed in blocking the creation of Medicare. And farsighted thinkers are already suggesting that the Veterans Health Administration, not President Bush's unrealistic vision of a system in which people go "comparative shopping" for medical care the way they do when buying tile, represents the true future of American health care.

To: Amy J who wrote (270182)	1/27/2006 2:47:25 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1577903

OT Why isn't anyone looking at the big picture, and the fact that the Big Three do not get the chance to play on an even playing field, but face high tariffs, while their competition does not? This is the root cause for the so called "failure" of the Big Three. Health care costs may have aggrandized the problem, but why is absolutely nobody talking about the 25% tariffs China imposes on cars coming into China, while we hit them with a 2% tariff? This is one industry in which Congress has failed them. Brian

To: Amy J who wrote (270182)	1/27/2006 6:21:07 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1577903

RE: "GM's health liabilities may well be worse than Toyota's" May be worse? [ Cough ] Okay, this means you're uninformed about Toyota. I am not uninformed about Toyota. I just don't know the cost differentials off the top of my memory and am unwilling to look them up again. Your post also implies you believe Ford has a $98B liability in benefits. No, they have been paying their liability right along. GM has not. Why not? They never stopped paying one of the highest share dividends in the industry. You really can't ignore $98B benefit liability issues when you discuss a business. No kidding. But keep in mind GM makes 200 billion dollars per year in revenue. To do so, would be to ignore the business you are attempting to discuss. RE: "And its not just me that feels this way" Reread my post - did you miss the "Yes, I concur with you" on many points? If you concur with me, why are you primarily blaming the unions? The unions are only part of GM's problems; however, they are what make headlines......and GM likes that. GM is a poorly run company with horrendous margins. It has been unwilling to accept that it has lost tremendous market share in the past 20 years and therefore, holds onto assets that are more appropriate for a larger company. And to maintain their legendary image of the company that determines the well-being of America, which stop being true at least 20 years ago, they pay one of the highest dividends in the industry even as they bleed red ink everywhere. Here are their margins compared to the industry average: GM for GM: 13% Industry Ave.: 17% EBITDA for GM: .23% Industry Ave.: 7% NPM for GM: -2.25% Industry Ave: 2% Tax rate for GM: Nada Industry Ave: 33% Last quarter sales increase YOY for GM: 5% " " Indus. Ave: 11% GM's dividend yield: 10% Industry Average: 4% By any metric, GM's performance is lousy and has been for years. So I repeat my initial contension.....yes, GM has a health liability issue that they have allowed to grow out of control while they maintained the pretense that they were at the top of their game. However, it didn't have to be that way. They could have done a whole bunch of things including stopping the dividend so they wouldn't get into the mess they are in now. But God forbid they should screw up the GM share legacy for their wealthy shareholders and their upper mgmt. Recently, very eloquently, you pointed out to someone that essentially they could not see the forest for the trees.......I think it was Elroy. Well I say that to you now.....GM's problems are a whole lot bigger than their union liabilities and correcting that problem will do little to correct that which really ails GM. ted