Universal Healthcare: Why Wouldn't EVERY CEO be for it?

[maseman]

One of the biggest expenses that a busniess takes on every year is healthcare. It is a huge burden on companies as they many times pay large percentages of the monthly payments, the paperwork involved, the annual negotiations with healthcare companies, etc.

If we were able to move to a more single-payer health care system wouldn't it be significantly better for all businesses in the US taking away the healthcare burden from them? I would think CEOs and CFOs all over the US would jump for joy at this prospect.

What am I missing?

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. I think part of it has to deal with preceived tax increase v. current expense.

Honestly, I don't know how much water that would hold, though. I just don't know enough about the issue.

[supernova]

2. That would require them to like their employees

and think of them as valued human beings, instead of disposable widgets.

We really need to get rid of the adversarial relationship that management has toward labor (all labor, not just the labor movement) in this country. It's sickening.

[maseman]

7. Actually that is not it at all

I am thinking the CEOs would like it because it would take a huge cost off of their books. Business would still have to pay some of the freight in healthcare taxes but it would be lower than the BS they pay now.

[supernova]

10. Actually yes, that is it

I agree with you, there are wonderful reasons for supporting UHC, but it will require a sea change in the ways we think about each other in a public sense, i.e. Michael Moore's "We" instead of "Me."

[phantom power]

3. It's not good news for the CEOs of insurance companies...

It's also not good news for the pharmaceutical industry CEOs.

Those are two powerful lobbies, right there. As for other CEOs, I think as Americans we have all been indoctrinated over the last 30 years or so to reflexively resist "tax increases" and "socialism." So, I would be there are plenty of CEOs who just don't get it.

[Wilms]

4. One reason may be that it robs corporations of a carrot they dangle. n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Like, "Jones will never leave us. His kid's got cancer and he needs the coverage."

[supernova]

12. That's all too true

in some instances even now.

There are many people who don't leave jobs because they don't want to lose the healthcare.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

17. It definitely gives me pause.

I've been thinking about taking early retirement and starting a new career. Now there's the tanking economy to worry about but the main thing that's been stopping me is giving up my decent medical plan.
I can't help but wonder how many potential entrepreneurs are toiling away at crappy jobs because loss in coverage would be an economic disaster for them or their families.

[tularetom]

5. They are genetically programmed to oppose anything that causes taxes to increase

Even if in the long run it would save them money.

One of the reasons the American economy and American corporations in particular are in such deep shit is because of the inability of our corporate "leaders" to see past the end of their noses.

[Schema Thing]

6. because they are examples of the Peter Principle

[BlooInBloo]

8. I've never understood that myself.

[ljm2002]

11. Because they are greedy idiots...

...greedy in that they don't want their own personal taxes to increase. Idiots in that they are incapable of seeing the big picture -- such as how it would help make our industries more competitive since the companies would not have to bear the cost of health insurance.

We all know they're greedy. To reinforce that they're idiots, one need look no further than the automobile industry, and how they have continued to push gas guzzling behemoths at the expense of more fuel-efficient vehicles, and how they ceded the mantle of quality and maintainability to non-US automakers.

[Greyhound]

13. I imagine the CEOs of the health care denial industry would be opposed, but fuck them. n/t

[LeeM]

14. CEO's focus: shareholder profits

At least in my business sector, the rate of return to the shareholders indirectly determines the executives future. Anything that reduces dividends is "bad", and the shareholders will react. The long term picture should be more important, but most of the CEOs fear losing their job over losing employees jobs. It's sad, because the current quarter's profit is more important to them (shareholders)than the long term health of the company.

[SteelPenguin]

15. I own a small business, and am part of a local small business group

I would say the majority, including some otherwise VERY conservative people, are for universal health care, or taking health care off the businesses. It's just too expensive for small businesses to compete at the moment with the health care costs. Any business that is opposed to it is either already large, or isn't up on the current numbers.

Universal Health Care would help small and medium sized businesses in the country even with a corresponding tax increase, and from my experience the majority are for it. Only the unblinking idealogues aren't.

[maseman]

16. Thanks for your input

That was exactly what I was talking about. WHen I say CEO people think about furtune 500 companies but essentially a CEO is a chief of any business small or large. I would think most businesses would want to cut the massive healthcare bill from their expense lines. It can only help their bottom lines.

[PVnRT]

18. The CEO of Ford has been for it for some time

For the exact reason you mention - lower costs to them.

It will require a sea change, but this is one argument that can go a long way towards achieving it.

[Oregone]

19. It makes their employees (servants) less desperate