Saving GM?

There is some talk about saving GM (and maybe the entire American auto industry.

Well, I just recently bought a Japanese car, so maybe I am not qualified to speak.  But, I suppose someone will check on the history of the feds trying to help auto makers and auto workers.  There was a time when the government thought it should provide health care for auto workers.  The unions did not like this proposal, but now it doesn’t seem so bad.  Why not take the decline of the auto industry in America as an opportunity. 

In all these big industry declines health insurance is often cited as a problem.  The auto industry pays out a lot of money to maintain its workers and its retirees.  Why not take some of the bail out money and offer the soon to be laid off work force health insurance.  One less problem to worry about.  If you are a free market capitalist, you might already think that private entities shouldn’t be in the business of taking care of the citizens.  That is the role of government.  Most industries have already gone that route with pensions.  Everyone has a 401k these days, if they have anything at all.  But we also have Social Security.  Companies have bailed out of pension plans because they cost too much, and it is a never ending expense.  Yet it is also a requirement that people be taken care of in their old age.  Well, isn’t it?  Okay, maybe I don’t need to offer an argument on behalf of universal health care (see the meeting that Dr. Retan has been having courtesy of OTMDems).  All I am suggesting is that the decline of GM offers an opportunity to make an even stronger case.  Some huge part of the anxiety and distress of being laid off is thinking that you will no longer have access to adequate health care.  Think about the workers who are just being diagnosed with some chronic illness.  Offering to use the bailout money to subsidize people’s health care will help many more people, and it might even help GM.  It might also (ever since Palin, I really hate saying ‘also’) help those among the 53,000 Citigroup employees who eventually find themselves unemployed.  It could be put into the same pot as extending unemployment benefits.  In fact, health care coverage ought to be an unemployment benefit as much as the $190 a week it pays.  (Well, that’s what it was last time I got it.)

And by the way, President Obama?  When you start those public works projects to try to get some of these people back to work, I know there are lots of cities that need some public transportation infrastructure.  Maybe rather than try to revive a dying automobile industry, we ought to start investing in something reasonable.  It might be time to let the old car die and find some other way to get around.  Isn’t that part of the green revolution in technology?

Maybe.

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