The big money in the Chrysler deal is in health care

Justin: how would this change if the US adopted some kind of universal health care program (which is looking increasingly likely in 09 as the Democrats gain power politically)? Would that enable them to cut these costs? Could the private equity firm be betting on that?

I'm working on figuring that out, Tom. Most of these retirees are eligible for Medicare, and I doubt any universal health care plan would be substantially more generous than Medicare is, so my initial thought is that it shouldn't matter all that much. But I'm a bit of a novice on health policy, so don't take my word for it at this point.

Somehow the rest of the first world is ruining their economy with universal healthcare, but it's US companies that are at risk of going out of business from it.

Chuck do you mean others are ruining or running their economies? Canada, the UK and Australia are doing just fine with universal healthcare, so I'm going to go ahead and take that as a typo on your behalf.

I'm a Canadian so I'm a bit confused as to America's fear of a public health care system. Canada uses about 3000$ per person while the US has around 9000$ per person if your looking at strictly financial basis. But the result you get from a Canadian hospital for the same illness is somewhat better then the US one. Not having a streamlined process has created a lot more overhead for your companies. Do some research for a study released about a month ago for the figures since i'm pulling them from memory but the conclusion were quite clear

"I'm a Canadian so I'm a bit confused as to America's fear of a public health care system."

It's pretty simple: we don't really have a free press here and the corporate media that we do have opposes it. That's the answer to all questions about why the United States is so right-wing politically: we're fed nothing but corporatist propaganda by our media.

US health Care system is chaotic and expensive because it enriches all the key role players involved (ei: big pharma, big insurance, big hospitals and big labor unions) As long as these special interest groups keep enriching themselves, the American public will continue to pay for this dysfunctional health care system.

I think Chuck was making a joke, people. (Back me up on this, Chuck.)

Their are two negatives to Canadian health care, one line ups. My nephew has been waiting over two years for an MRI and getting a family doctor (at least in Ontario) if you don't have one is pretty much impossible. Secondly no private health care. Canada is the only country in the world to ban private health care. This means you have no alternatives to waiting in line. Europe where I live you have a private and a public system that work side by side and no one complains.

Healthcare costs just contribute to the meltdown of the "Detroit 3." The real issue is that they make cars no one wants to buy: ugly design, bad gas mileage, low quality, etc... Yes, healthcare costs do add to the price of an "American" car, but the reasons these vehicles don't sell have very little to do with prices. Very few people I know buy Japanese cars because they're "cheap."

Forgot 1 thing. A good start to turning around Chrysler is for Cerberus management to distribute a copy of "The Toyota Way" to every one of its employees.

Universal healthcare and more taxes? What for? So that the government can spend it on something else like they do with Social Security now or in the same manner all these states do with their 'Lotto millions' to name but 2 blantant examples of outright fraud.

The best solution to exploding health care costs is to ban health insurance.

Face it, next to no one who buys insurance gets value for their money. Insurance only encourages greed and fraud.

You've heard of this proposed these private Social Security accounts? The same should be done with health care. A private account in which the money could only be used for health care. No more frivolous visits to the doctor. No more frivolous prescribing of drugs. No more assembly line waiting rooms in doctor's offices. And no more obscenely greedy profits by insurance companies.

Catastrophic medical bills can be paid for by the government as they do happen from time to time. Paid for by the government after a deep discount that is, as it is the government who has subsidized everything from the training, to the research, to the equipment and facilities of all these things to begin with.

With such a plan, you will see by the time one is old one will have a very nice savings account for health expenses when they are much more likely to need it. This money can be used then for assisted living facilities and the like if need be. None of it will have been wasted on Ritalin, cosmetic surgery, Vicadin, the latest weightloss magic pill, or on an insurance agent's new Porsche 911.

Face it, you have to take responsibilty for your own future. The government and business only see you as someone to stick their hands into your pockets. Start demanding your government hand back control of your destiny to you.

For those in Canada, tell me something truly groundbreaking in medical R&D that's come out of Canada's health system since universal health care was made into law. Canada and places like that only work because they are parasitizing the R&D that is done in the US. You know, the same type of parasitizing these countries do regarding security while wagging their fingers at us 'you warmongers!'.

I can understand that healthy care for retirees is really a heavy burden, but it is really shocking that this happens in capitalism states like US rather than china. In china, since the government is not able to afford heavy public healthy care, most of the responsibility is passed to individuals.

param,it's ridiculous and superficial to get the conclusion about the chinese health care policy when you just see some individiual instance.

Similar happens in Mexico, in the next couple year the social security won't be able to support all the retirees since the funds that they've created are basically use for another purposes and not for what originally were created

Justin: Do you feel that Toyota and other rising automakers will face challenges similar to the Big Three in the future, once their current workers start to retire? Of all the industries facing waves of boomers retiring, why has the auto industry been hardest hit?

At what point in time did it become the responsibility of chrysler to wipe your butt and change your bed pan when your 80?? For what? You putting on door pannels? Installing seats? For a job that takes as much mental thought as a burger line cook. I think they're getting a hell of a gravy train deal. I hope chrysler, ford, and GM axe all UAW greedy lazy workers and higher people that want to work for a living and not sit in a room of a closed down plant and stare at the ceiling all day to collect a pay check.

I've tried answering James's questions here.

As for Kris's comment: It became Chrysler's responsibility when it promised its employees years ago that it would take care of their health care costs in retirement. Was it promising too much? Yeah, probably. Was that the workers' fault? Don't think so.

Social insurance is never a problem to me, coz I don't have budget to pay my future.

"At what point in time did it become the responsibility of chrysler to wipe your butt and change your bed pan when your 80?? For what? You putting on door pannels? Installing seats? For a job that takes as much mental thought as a burger line cook. I think they're getting a hell of a gravy train deal. I hope chrysler, ford, and GM axe all UAW greedy lazy workers and higher people that want to work for a living and not sit in a room of a closed down plant and stare at the ceiling all day to collect a pay check."

Kris: you ought to see if you can get the GOP candidates to come out and say this on the campaign trail.