GM pensions major part of collapse

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Originally Posted By: Vilan
Originally Posted By: PT1
There is no good reason for national healthcare...ask anyone in Canada or the UK. They all advise against it.


Huh? It's not a perfect system but I generally support it. My dad is retired and had to go for heart surgery several years ago. I can only imagine what the bill would've been in the US. No, it's not really "free"... but socialism isn't so bad. Join us, comrade!
grin2.gif


Abasiltvly not !
My wife works health records/billing at a large Canadian hosbital ,There are 15 of them .............the whole hosbital!
Look at Henry Ford across the river its a freeckin office tower at least 15 floors of people wasting your money,doing what 15 do here.
 
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Originally Posted By: hone eagle
Originally Posted By: Vilan
Originally Posted By: PT1
There is no good reason for national healthcare...ask anyone in Canada or the UK. They all advise against it.


Huh? It's not a perfect system but I generally support it. My dad is retired and had to go for heart surgery several years ago. I can only imagine what the bill would've been in the US. No, it's not really "free"... but socialism isn't so bad. Join us, comrade!
grin2.gif


Abasiltvly not !
My wife works health records/billing at a large Canadian hosbital ,There are 15 of them .............the whole hosbital!
Look at Henry Ford across the river its a freeckin office tower at least 15 floors of people wasting your money,doing what 15 do here.


What could you Canadians possibly know about the Canadian health care system, you're Canadian, eh.
LOL.gif
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Pensions are not just a massive problem for GM most states have massive pension liabilities. Kalifornia for example.The Fed has massive unfunded liabilities for all the federal and military pensions.Promises easily made with little thought to paying for it.
 
Originally Posted By: cousincletus

That's true. Another good reason for national health care. You'll never be able to save enough $$$ to retire on a 401K. Pension is a lot better for the worker. Thank God there is still social security because that's what most retirees are going to be living on anyway.


There won't be social security in 30 years. Medicare in 15 yrs
crazy2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: hone eagle
Originally Posted By: Vilan
Originally Posted By: PT1
There is no good reason for national healthcare...ask anyone in Canada or the UK. They all advise against it.


Huh? It's not a perfect system but I generally support it. My dad is retired and had to go for heart surgery several years ago. I can only imagine what the bill would've been in the US. No, it's not really "free"... but socialism isn't so bad. Join us, comrade!
grin2.gif


Abasiltvly not !
My wife works health records/billing at a large Canadian hosbital ,There are 15 of them .............the whole hosbital!
Look at Henry Ford across the river its a freeckin office tower at least 15 floors of people wasting your money,doing what 15 do here.

Do they collect the taxes, too? I don't think tax collection is factored into the hospitals budget...
 
Originally Posted By: hone eagle
Tax collection is always the pervue of government

Exactly. Your hospital mostly has to deal with one payer. That one payer collects taxes outside of the hospital budget.

The US hospital has to pay people to collect money.

Apples to oranges.
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
Originally Posted By: cousincletus
Originally Posted By: Bamaro
The pensions and health care costs are the root cause of all of Detroit's problems.


That's true. Another good reason for national health care. You'll never be able to save enough $$$ to retire on a 401K. Pension is a lot better for the worker. Thank God there is still social security because that's what most retirees are going to be living on anyway.


There is no good reason for national healthcare...ask anyone in Canada or the UK. They all advise against it. National healthcare will chase another 20% of the manufacturing base out of the US. Then cap & trade will get another 30%. People should pay their own healthcare. I have been paying mine for 30 years and it is top notch. The governments theft of SS dollars will only continue with healthcare.


Most of us actually LIKE our healthcare system.....
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
Many upper income people in Canada aren't thrilled that their care is comparable to the walmart greeter next to them but that doesn't bother me at all.

Should their house, car, cloths... be forced to be the same as the greeter's as well?

No, but treating people like people is something worth paying taxes for IMHO.
 
Quote:
faced reality and negotiated to a middle ground where retirees would get a normal pension and some health care benefit that GM could afford.


..all that would have meant is that GM would be able to afford very little. They already took revenues that should have been in trust for pensioners and sent it out the door in dividends and bonuses.

Ford, iirc, introduced the sub-pay format for labor agreements. Not the UAW. If they had never done that (they were heralded as being pioneers at the time), then much of this problem would never have developed.
 
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
Many upper income people in Canada aren't thrilled that their care is comparable to the walmart greeter next to them but that doesn't bother me at all.

Should their house, car, cloths... be forced to be the same as the greeter's as well?

No, but treating people like people is something worth paying taxes for IMHO.

And yet your government doesn't provide food, shelter, electricity, drink and heating oil. Aren't those necessary for people to be treated like people?
Quote:
Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/06/26/shelter.html
 
I honestly and truthfully don't understand how the US system even functions, or can be seen as a 'mode1'...

You're having a severe medical emergency, and all the admiting staff care about is whether or not you have coverage. Or even if you do have coverage, how do you communicate that in the middle of a severe problem, or what if you are unconscious? They just must not publish the number of people who die while the admin staff figure out who is paying for it, I'd love to see those numbers!

OR, you're having an emergency, and you get treated, and either you don't have coverage, or your 'plan' doesn't cover it, and you get a bill promptly in the mail for somewhere around $10-$50k if it is a big enough procedure. How the heck are you supposed to just pay that? I'd love to see the numbers of people who go bankrupt just trying to stay alive!

Anyone who thinks the US system is a good model is pretty looney!
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
The guys in Management & the Union who struck all of those fairytale dream benefits are to blame.

Today.GM is gone. Replaced by Government Motors...which will fail miserably since they have a 31 year old Yale lawyer running the whole thing. Since he has never worked or stepped in an auto plant...they are doomed. If you buy a GM vehicle today...you are nuts unless it's 50% off sticker. The US taxpayers are already tired of pumping cash into this dead horse and will soon over turn the politicos who did this mess.

You can't legislate consumer perception. Right now Ford and Toyota are offering so many better choices as well. Soon you will see the "New GM " hype ads on TV...but who will invest in the company after they just screwed the bond & stockholders?

Fritz Henderson is in charge, not a "31 year old Yale lawyer", and he stands a good chance of turning the company around. We should all hope he does. But as you say, "You can't legislate consumer perception". It will take awhile to change this. Hyundai faced this and is doing well now, Detroit needs to do the same.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
Many upper income people in Canada aren't thrilled that their care is comparable to the walmart greeter next to them but that doesn't bother me at all.

Should their house, car, cloths... be forced to be the same as the greeter's as well?

No, but treating people like people is something worth paying taxes for IMHO.

And yet your government doesn't provide food, shelter, electricity, drink and heating oil. Aren't those necessary for people to be treated like people?
Quote:
Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/06/26/shelter.html

To be honest alot of program cutting went on in the 90's to lower taxes and run surpluses. It seems that most of programs being cut always affect the most vunerable here... Slashing welfare, mental health institutions, and public housing, gives us a homeless people problem now.
I'm not anti business but its seems the promised economic benefits of reducing taxes never hit the bottom 10-15% of citizens.
 
Quote:
I'm not anti business but its seems the promised economic benefits of reducing taxes never hit the bottom 10-15% of citizens.


Exactly ..and that bottom 10-15% are down cycled and more are pushed into the economically dysfunctional status.

It's just as bad for everyone above them. The only real beneficiaries are those on Wall St. that take everyone's pension money that's sitting in 401k's.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: cousincletus
Originally Posted By: Bamaro
The pensions and health care costs are the root cause of all of Detroit's problems.


That's true. Another good reason for national health care. You'll never be able to save enough $$$ to retire on a 401K. Pension is a lot better for the worker. Thank God there is still social security because that's what most retirees are going to be living on anyway.

I really hope that this is a tongue in cheek post...


Not a joke at all. Was dead serious. I have talked to people in Canada as I go there all the time. I haven't talked to one Canadian who would trade their system for ours. It seems like there are some here who are misinformed. "Drinking the cool aid", as some would say. Truth is national health care would make the US more competitive on the world market.
 
Quote:
Truth is national health care would make the US more competitive on the world market.

How does drastic tax increases and even greater debt make us more competitive?
 
Originally Posted By: AmericaWestCMH
Originally Posted By: addyguy
I'd love to see the numbers of people who go bankrupt just trying to stay alive!



http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnfl...gn_id=rss_daily

62% of bankruptcies attributable to medical debt, according to this.

What a wonder piece of propaganda. Truly dismal "reporting".

Quote:
The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.

A more recent study by another group, approaching it another way, indicates that in 2007 about eight-tenths of one percent of Americans lived in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of medical costs. That rings a little less loudly than “one every 30 seconds.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2009/03/medical-bankrup.html

What they define as a "medical expense" is also highly questionable as outlined in the article above.
 
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