A growing number of people in this country have no access to health care at all, as the cost of the sort of care they might need would financially cripple them and their families for the rest of their lives. And, people who have spent large portions of their income on health insurance are often dismayed to find their insurance will not cover any pre-existing condition, even when that condition was never properly diagnosed. Every day, we see evidence of these sorts of things in the news. More and more people are discovering that they must wing it on their own, as far as health care is concerned. Thus we see the renaissance of herbal medicine, and the vast interest in working out in gyms and health clubs, as ways to lower the cost of health care.

Many CEOs say they would rather have their firms located in Canada, as health care there is so much less expensive, both for the employers and the employees, than it is here in the States. Besides, Canadian workers are generally healthier than their U.S. counterparts. However, none of the CEOs this writer has interviewed are campaigning for single payer health care in this country. But then, few of us would ever credit CEOs with thinking in terms of the general good. Immediate profit to their companies, coupled with rises in the value of their companies’ stock is far more important to them. Every time a corporate manager lowers the cost of labor in his company, and health insurance is one of the costs of labor, they raise the value of their stock, and keeping their stockholders happy is what they are in business to do. As far as our society is concerned, this is a formula that makes no sense. These corporate leaders should be campaigning for single payer health care, and they would, if they did not own large shares of stock in the insurance companies. And we know that, as with any other corporation, the ob of the health insurance companies is to make money, not to pay out on claims.