Simon Johnson argued in a talk yesterday (and presumably in his latest book) that the way to bring down heath care costs is to explain to CEOs that since their companies are paying for heath insurance, high health care costs represents a tax on their business, and reduces their companies' profits and therefore their remuneration. They will then be motivated, Johnson argues, to lobby for reform that will change the relative bargaining power of buyers of health insurance relative to its suppliers.
My suspicion is that this won't work. There are two courses of action that CEOs are likely to take before lobbying for health care reform. The first is to stop paying for employee health insurance. We have already seen this when companies started laying off people and then rehiring them as independent contractors. A second, and even simpler option is to ship jobs over seas. Neither will lead to the desirable outcome of pressure being brought to bear on the provides of either medical medical insurance of services.
No comments:
Post a Comment