Because Johnny can't read

[unixronin]

(Snagged from james_nicoll)

CBC reports that Toyota will be building a new 1,300-worker auto manufacturing plant in Woodstock, Ontario, starting in 2008, instead of in the US, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered by several US states.  Why?

"[Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association president Garry Fedchun] said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment."

Hey, is that the sound of pigeons coming home to roost that I hear?

Fedchun also commented that Ontario workers are $4 to $5 per hour cheaper to employ because they're covered by Canada's socialized healthcare system, instead of by the US morass of health-insurance-for-profit.

"What we have done for auto we would like to be able to do for biotech," he said. "That's where we're lending some real focus to at the present time."

Similarly, Emmerson said Ottawa is looking to help out industries that create "clusters" of jobs around them - such as in aerospace, shipbuilding, telecommunications and forestry - where supply bases build around a large manufacturer.

I don't know about you, but this sounds like Canada's fixing to eat America's economic lunch.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

They may not eat our whole lunch, but that oatmeal cream pie has certainly been 0wn3d...

I just wish

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

that I had useful enough skills to offer Canada as a prospective immigrant.

Re: I just wish

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hey, try it. It can't hurt to ask around and see if you can find a job up there.

Re: I just wish

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

Vancouver sounds better and better to me.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

I'm in favor of a "universal" healthcare system in the USA, provided that all it does is provide baseline care, and has some very seriously difficult system to add coverage so that you don't end up with coverage creep (otherwise the system would eventually cover everything and cost the moon). It should also not underwrite bad risk (e.g. no lung cancer treatment if you've smoked at any time since the Surgeon General's Warning went on cigarette packages), and no extraordinary treatment for terminal conditions. It has to be funded through taxes on individuals, and not corporations.

Most important: the private medical system must continue to exist so that if you can afford to pay for additional/better care, you are able to buy it here. Otherwise, we'll end up like the UK.

if we can figure out how to structure this correctly, US businesses will be able to largely cut a major cost: health care insurance, and thus compete better internationally. This will also make US workers cost less, and thus compete better internationally.

As desireable as I believe this is, I think it's currently politically impossible to make the proper tradeoffs to make it actually happen.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good system, if it could be made to work over the screams of the healthcare-for-profit industry.

Additionally, I think a lot of the cost problem could be alleviated simply by requiring that all healthcare providers operate as not-for-profit operations. Apart from anything else, it would reduce the incentive to perform "sexy", high-profit procedures that have dubious medical benefits or don't actually provide any better long-term prognosis for the patient than other, less glamorous but less profitable procedures.

I personally think there's also a great deal to be said for a single-payer setup, but I'm not sure immediately how to fit that into a two-layer system like this.

Hah

[lonewolf545.livejournal.com]

Look at the military healthcare system for an example of how our government can screw up healthcare. While you're at it, if you can find my medical records from birth through age 18 for me, I'd love to have them. And look at some of the problems Canada's system has, including WHY a recent Canadian Supreme Court decision threw out the law banning private health insurance...

Re: Hah

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid our government's capacity for screwing up almost anything you can name appear to have few limits.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Saw this a day or two back. Amusing but sad.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

There are two reasons that health care costs are spiraling in the US right now: pharmaceuticals and the current tax/benefits model enforced by state governments. In the latter case, the market adapts by having corporations provide health care to workers, but this abstracts cost-feedback to individual consumers -- everyone's stuck in large group plans and run up Viagra bills. The former issue is more difficult, working out the proper incentives for the market to run efficiently.

More here:

Mandatory Health Insurance Now!: It will save private medicine -- and spur medical innovation. (http://www.reason.com/0411/fe.rb.mandatory.shtml)

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

the system here sucks!