Published on Monday, March 18, 2002 in the Madison Capital Times

by Dave Zweifel

Marjorie Colson, that tireless Madison advocate for the elderly, suggested I take a look at what the U.S. steel companies have been proposing these days in their efforts to get the U.S. government to save them from the "foreigners."

Big steel is in a heckuva fix, so bad, in fact, that much of it is in bankruptcy court. European steel companies, in particular, are underselling the U.S. firms. This has all prompted George W. Bush, who normally spews the "free market" and World Trade Organization line, to slap tariffs ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent on foreign steel, a move that has naturally angered the governments of the countries hit by the effort to protect the U.S. companies.

The tariffs are also expected to add hundreds of dollars to the cost of U.S. cars and other products that are made with large amounts of steel.

The president did not, however, agree - not yet, anyway - to endorse another request from the U.S. steel industry for the federal government to pick up its "legacy costs" - health insurance and pensions - for retired steelworkers.

This, the companies argue, would allow them to merge and be more competitive in the long run. Foreign steel companies don't have these costs, the U.S. companies argue.

And that's what prompted Marjorie Colson's call.

"You know what they're saying?" she asked and then answered her own question. "They won't call it that, but they're talking about national health insurance."

And therein lies a huge irony, she and I agreed. Not many of America's big corporations have joined the health insurance debate on the side of those of us who have long felt we need a single-payer health plan to solve our country's health system woes. But now big steel thinks it might be OK for the U.S. government to take over its health insurance.

Plus, it's admitting that foreign steel companies, primarily because their governments do have national health insurance, aren't saddled with the huge costs that many U.S. companies now face to insure their own employees.

It's somewhat refreshing that corporate America may finally be seeing the light that a true single-payer health system, free of the confusing and inefficient private bureaucracy we currently have, might actually help it be more competitive in the world.

Too many have been willing to dismiss a national single-payer system as "socialism" or akin to being un-American when it might actually help our capitalists compete.

Copyright 2002 The Capital Times

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