#626 Joint Appeal

Recently the CEO’s of companies like DuPont and General Electric practically begged Lawmakers to strictly regulate carbon emissions.
In a separate but somewhat related plea, the CEO of Wal-Mart and the leader of the Service Employees international Union jointly appealed for some form of Universal Health Care.
This is big news in a city where there are ten drug company lobbyists for every lawmaker.
And amazing when you consider not long ago anyone who mentioned global warming was contemptuously dismissed as a tree hugger and universal health care was the most spectacularly derailed initiative of the First Clinton Administration.
Has business suddenly gone all squishy-soft and liberal? Nope, they’re doing what they’ve always done—looking at the bottom line.
The more we learn about global warming the more business sees that if it goes unchecked, the economy at large will be devastated. Rising sea levels alone will have a huge impact on coastal cities, which also happen to be massive centers of commerce and trade.
And health care. Health care costs continue to rise, up 25% in just the last few years, and businesses and unions can no longer afford to provide coverage and still reap in the profits.
Universal insurance, where everyone is in the pool and the cost of the risk gets spread more evenly, makes dollars and sense with a capital S. Uninsured people have gone over the tipping point, but still place huge demands on the healthcare system, so we all end up paying for it anyhow.
It’s grown like a cancer into a cumbersome and far more inefficient system than any bureaucracy.
So CEOs are saying enough is enough, lawmakers. Quit rattling the bugaboos of “socialized medicine” and “scientists are wrong about the human effect of global warming” and get something done.
Will they? Probably not. Preventing fires takes political will and vision. Using long term thinking to clear out the underbrush. Not just waiting and then trying to put out the short-term fire after it’s blazing.
Because there’s nothing glorious and vote-getting about rototillers and bulldozers. But a nice new fire engine...
America, ya gotta love it