Universal Health Care for Michigan?

[HolidayInnExpress]

I was attempting to brainstorm with my brother on a way that Michigan can be more competitive to attack Business and people or people and Business, which ever comes first. We concluded that Michigan needs to do something radical that no other state is doing...which is...UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

What is the benefits/cost of Michigan being the only State in the Union with Universal health care? Given that Health Care cost are killing many companies, would not companies be attracted to locating here if they did not have the health care cost burden? Of course, that burden would be shifted to tax payers of the state, but it would or should generate interest relocation interest of Businesses who would be more competitive due to lower or now health care burden.

I know that there are pros and cons...but Michigan needs to do something radical or its going to continue to hemorrhage.

[Sundodger]

Kiss business goodbye. The problem with healthcare costs isn't lack of socialism, it is the costs of insurance, mainly due to regulation & lawsuits.

Universal healthcare is a bad deal. I am sure Michigan hospitals have plenty of Canadian patients seeking treatment they can't get in Canada.

Michigan's solution to be more competitive is to cut tax & regulation, not raise them which you suggest.

[HolidayInnExpress]

Kiss business goodbye. The problem with healthcare costs isn't lack of socialism, it is the costs of insurance, mainly due to regulation & lawsuits.

Universal healthcare is a bad deal. I am sure Michigan hospitals have plenty of Canadian patients seeking treatment they can't get in Canada.

Michigan's solution to be more competitive is to cut tax & regulation, not raise them which you suggest.

Are Businesses fleeing Canada and Europe at a pace as fast as they are fleeing non socialist AMerica?

[GRDadof3]

Actually many manufacturers and other businesses are leaving Western Europe for less expensive Eastern European countries. I don't know the situation in Canada.

[Rural King]

Eastern European nations tend to have socialized health systems as well though, but their labor costs are way lower, and at least they are in the EU or will soon be. We have US industry that is locating in Canada due to their universal system, which apparently in the scheme of things costs less when all is said and done then providing coverage here in the US for some industries.

To answer the question though, it would put you at a competative disadvantage with the other 49 states, since Michigan would be the only state offereing universal coverage and having to produce tax revenue to pay for it, ie the cost of business would go up.

[hood]

A universal health care system should save business' a lot of money. They wouldn't have to pay the ridiculous health insurance rates, the added tax would only have to be like 5% or something if the system was done right. Michigan could actually sand to gain immensly from being the first state with unversal health care, and I think Granholm likes the idea.

[Rural King]

^ I think a national system would be cost effective and help retain domestic industries from leaving the country, however I don't think it would as cost effective on the single state level; not that its a bad idea, but I think their might be tax issues that could effect a state's competativeness against other states. Thats not to say a efficient well ran single state system could not make the cost of doing business go down and still retain a competative tax structure, however I think it would be a delicate balancing act, esp. when we start talking about the level of benefit packages, administrative costs, lawsuits, etc.

Look at Tennessee, we came the closest to a universal system in the nation in the mid-90s, but poor management under one two-term administration (not the one that established it or the same party) drove up the cost of TennCare (the name of our expanded Medicaid system) to the point were it was eating up nearly half of all new tax dollars and growing so fast it would soon outpace the ability of the state to sustain the program. Now TennCare was one of the most progressive, ambitious, and in terms of postive impact successful plans ever set up by the State of Tennessee. It helped hundreds of thousands of needy and sick Tennessans, but due to one administration's mismangement, poor oversight, a poorly defined drug plan (ie no limits), lawsuits challanging any changes to fix the system or its defined benefits, in and out of state fraud, etc, the state has had to cut off hundreds of thousands of receipants over the last few years, 180K just last year alone, to get its costs back to were the state can sustain it. TennCare was great, and I hope one day state can cover more folks again like it once did, but it clearly illustrates the good and bad sides of a state trying to establish such an ambitious program on its own.

Just something to ponder.

[superNOVA]

Look at two examples...

Northern Europe: Tax rates (effective) are around 85% to cover the social programs - the most expensive of which is health care. Government does not have the ability to control costs and the expense per person is through the roof. Even worse, the drag this is having on the economy is leading to permanant 15%+ unemployment rates, zero growth or less than 2% economic growth rates, and a growing concern about the ability of European nations to even stay afloat. If Europe faced a major disaster or a large war, they literally do not have the money or resources to do anything about it - they are becoming reliant on us to fix these problems for them.

TennCare: Tennessee did do statewide health care. The result. Less than a decade later it was bankrupt. Even worse, it almost took the State with it. While Tennessee has recovered it seriously damaged the local economy, pushing them almost a decade behind neighboring States. The only thing that saved the State is the amount of immigration and jobs moving in (not for TennCare but for location) - in Michigan we do not have this luxury.

Universal heath care offered at the State level would destroy Michigan within a decade.

[eagle]

Look at two examples...

Northern Europe: Tax rates (effective) are around 85% to cover the social programs - the most expensive of which is health care. Government does not have the ability to control costs and the expense per person is through the roof. Even worse, the drag this is having on the economy is leading to permanant 15%+ unemployment rates, zero growth or less than 2% economic growth rates, and a growing concern about the ability of European nations to even stay afloat. If Europe faced a major disaster or a large war, they literally do not have the money or resources to do anything about it - they are becoming reliant on us to fix these problems for them.

TennCare: Tennessee did do statewide health care. The result. Less than a decade later it was bankrupt. Even worse, it almost took the State with it. While Tennessee has recovered it seriously damaged the local economy, pushing them almost a decade behind neighboring States. The only thing that saved the State is the amount of immigration and jobs moving in (not for TennCare but for location) - in Michigan we do not have this luxury.

Universal heath care offered at the State level would destroy Michigan within a decade.

'nuff said.

[HolidayInnExpress]

Look at two examples...

Northern Europe: Tax rates (effective) are around 85% to cover the social programs - the most expensive of which is health care. Government does not have the ability to control costs and the expense per person is through the roof. Even worse, the drag this is having on the economy is leading to permanant 15%+ unemployment rates, zero growth or less than 2% economic growth rates, and a growing concern about the ability of European nations to even stay afloat. If Europe faced a major disaster or a large war, they literally do not have the money or resources to do anything about it - they are becoming reliant on us to fix these problems for them.

TennCare: Tennessee did do statewide health care. The result. Less than a decade later it was bankrupt. Even worse, it almost took the State with it. While Tennessee has recovered it seriously damaged the local economy, pushing them almost a decade behind neighboring States. The only thing that saved the State is the amount of immigration and jobs moving in (not for TennCare but for location) - in Michigan we do not have this luxury.

Universal heath care offered at the State level would destroy Michigan within a decade.

Yeah...and Micheal Jordan was once cut from his High school basketball team too. There are lessons learned from failures that make future success possible...but only if one keeps trying. To forward the notion that a failed objective or method is perpetually doomed to failure goes against nearly every success story. Moreover, I don't see people fleeing Socialist Europe or Canada to live in America if the tax rates were as oppressive as suggested. Tennesses failure might have been in the management or implementation. The viablitity of the idea or concept did not fail, but rather the practice of it. That is a noteworthy distinction.

[francishsu]

To me, it seems like the only chance at reducing the cost of health care is to focus on preventative/wellness. Get people to take better care of themselves. I'm as guilty as anyone in that regard and maybe I've gotten too used to my lifestyle to change. So maybe you have to focus on the kids and hope that it pays off in a generation.