One of 2004’s biggest campaign issues, after the war in Iraq and the economy, is
healthcare. General Motors chairman Rick Wagoner spoke about healthcare’s impact on the auto industry to a recent
conference. Healthcare is a major cost for automakers and other U.S. industry. It’s interesting that GM’s political
action committee over the past five years has given 60% of its money to the Republican party and 40% to the Democrats.
Talk about hedging your bets. But I like Wagoner’s take and I think most Americans need to read this part of
just-auto.com story: Wagoner reportedly said much of the discussion in Washington tends to center around a complete,
free-market system on one extreme, and a national health care program [similar to the UK’s National Health Service] on
the other.
“I suspect we’re not going to end up with either one of those solutions,” he told the Associated Press. “So if
we could get people working on stuff in the middle … I think there’d be some real improvements made.”
It must be hard to be a politician because if anyone would make their points this plainly we might be a bit farther
along with the healthcare issue by now.