I have been thinking about how to bail out the big 3 without giving them the cash outright. My goal is to make sure that the money doesn’t just get spent for executive compensation, dividends or private planes. I want the companies to remain competitive with foreign automakers and I want them to thrive.
Here is what I think we can do to make this work. We take on the healthcare liabilities of the automakers by offering national healthcare to UAW members. I don’t know if we use an existing program (like the coverage that Congress gets) or build a new plan altogether.
This will give us a start on the implementation of a national plan that we can migrate all Americans over to in the course of the next 8 years. We can use this large pool to work out the bugs in the system.
Our auto industry would immediately become more competitive, even compared to domestic production of foreign cars. And once we have a solid plan for nationalizing healthcare, we can have a huge uptick in entrepreneurial activity, as Americans with good ideas realize that the activation energy required to start a new business has just dropped. No longer will they need enough revenue to afford individual health insurance. No longer will they have to put off hiring because they cannot afford the health insurance premiums of an additional employee.
This can be an opportunity disguised as an obstacle. We have the opportunity to save one of our largest manufacturing sectors, start the process to fix our healthcare system and lay the groundwork for a massive expansion small businesses.