Re: How many jobs depend on the Detroit Three?

In 2006 a typical UAW-represented assembler at GM earned $27.81 per hour of straight-time labor. A typical UAW-represented skilled-trades worker at GM earned $32.32 per hour of straight-time labor. Between

2003 and 2006, the wages of a typical UAW assembler have grown at about the same rate as wages in the private sector as a whole =96 roughly 9 percent. Part of that growth is due to cost-of-living adjustments that have helped prevent inflation from eroding the purchasing power of workers=92 wages.

The total cost will drop to $62 per hour in 2010 when the linchpin of the contract - a UAW administered trust fund - starts paying retiree health care costs.

But that's still $9 more than the $53 per hour that GM estimated Toyota now pays in the U.S., and the gap could be even wider. Toyota spokesman Mike Goss said the company's total labor costs at its older U.S. plants are around $48, with about $30 per hour in wages.

But GM pays pensions for its retirees, something Toyota isn't having to do yet. Still, hard to demand existing workers take a pay cut for this.

Difficult to compete with next door Canada, where all get basic health care for life at a very reasonable fee per individual. That Canadian advantage lowers company costs significantly.

Many Canadians like their cars to be built in NAFTA. GM's small cars from Korea are not desired, coming cars from China will be less desired in the current economy. We remember the Yugo, which was recently discontinued, probably because their high scrap rate was not environmentally kind.

who were still buying the Yugo obviously didn't know any better. The B3 cars have been selling well in Canada this year.

Yeah, well we pay for it in our taxes, both corporate and individual, plus the price of gasoline. I always hear that private is better and more efficient than public in all cases so you must be mistaken.

There are plenty of countries with universal health care that is not like the Canadian system -- and even with a choice of private insurers.

Perce

Actually we do have some private insurers.

Actually, we haven't experienced the same issues as you have in the overall economy. Our stock market has tanked too though.

Since when? The fact that that was illegal was the focus of a CDN Supreme Court ruling a few years ago.

Our insurers sell packages for prescription drugs and upgrades to hospital stays. That type of thing.

There are newer companies trying to sell "extended" insurance for actual services like operations etc. This seems to be mainly driven by B.C., Alberta and Quebec. There was a court decision that said it was against people's rights to forbid private insurance or something like that. Aside from the prescription drug and hospital room type insurance, this is relatively new.

I've wondered why the B3 were shutting down plants in Ontario over the past few years, given that they are paying huge legacy heathcare costs for thousands of retired US auto workers and their surviving spouses. No doubt that US health care costs are a huge factor in the unprofitable operations of the B3.

If you're an American employee working for a company that pays the health insurance for your family, then of course you're going to think that private health insurance is the best.

If you're an American employee that has to pay for family heath insurance out-of-pocket, or if you're the owner of a small to medium-sized company, the US health care system is a bitch and very costly to you.

Ontarians don't realize how efficient our health care system is at allocating resources and controlling costs while delivering pretty good care, all without filling out insurance forms and worrying if your treatment will be approved. And naturally our drug costs are lower too.

If you were an American and had to pay for health insurance for your family, you'd be forking out $10k to $12k a year for the same coverage you get from OHIP. There is no way that you're being over-taxed to anywhere near that amount.

Don't forget too that built into the US health care system is the cost of malpractice insurance, which is huge because of no caps for punative dammage awards. Since we have caps for punative awards, malpractice insurance costs are much lower here.

I am aware of what you are talking about. I am just explaining to some of them that we do pay for this from our taxes. It is not free. So when considering tax levels, we should probably instead consider health insurance costs + tax levels.

It's amazing how discussions of socialized medicine always turn into a shell game where the discussion goes around in continuous circles. You are correct - people in favor of socialized medicine talk as if it is free when it is obvious to the thinking person that the costs have to come from somewhere.

Someone mentioned medicines are cheaper in Canada. Hopefully that problem will be fixed in the U.S. where we are subsidizing all the other countries by the difference that we pay for the same medicines by the price structures for U.S. vs. non-U.S.

But health care is still 1/3 cheaper by % of GDP in Canada.

Is that an honest figure? Is that the *total* health care cost? Does everyone agree on that figure, or is it calculated using some Al Gore-type method that ignores certain inconvenient things and exaggerates others or includes some "savings" that should not be included? How much of that cost is the cost of medicines subsidized by the U.S. consumer and health care industry? What quality level has been lost to hit whatever the cost level is?

Thanks. These supplement plans generally aren't viewed as insurance in the US, thus the question. Just a difference in nomenclature. As for something like that: "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin. "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health-care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital health care result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness.²

Instead you worry about whether the line will too long and the disease will progress. At one time, although this has recently been corrected, you were 3 times more likely to die on queue waiting for a "nonemergent" heart bypass than you were to die on the table during the surgery. There is also a lag time (at least compared to the US) where many new drugs and procedures aren't available. Studies from the cardiologists, for example, show Canadians consisently have lower use of cutting edge medications, have higher incidence of handicaps and lower standardized quality of life scores.

Depends. Only the brand name medications are price-controlled. Many studies show Canadians pay more for generics because they aren't.

But there is also no way you would get the same coverage. The US rations care by ability to pay. Other ration by access (as noted above for example). In Canada, you guys have a heavily subsidized system (with all of the demand dislocations that incurs), but government-run price controls. In the US we managed to also get a highly subsidized system, but since we don't have the control mechanisms supply and demand forces run rampant. Especially in a situation where there are high barriers to entry to the industry (you don't decide in 6 months to be a doc.)

The other big cost is back office with so many different forms. Although many docs are most pissed off about the high levels of paperwork associated with government run programs.