One more reason to outsource

Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria is a new program on PBS which aims to bring serious foreign affairs discussion on TV. Fareed Zakaria is a writer and does not have the noise making capability of Chris Matthews, which is required for American TV. As a result the program though strong in content, is painful to watch.
In the last program he mentioned that Detroit is no longer the No.1 car manufacturing joint in North America. That position goes to Ontario, Canada. The reason for this is the rising health costs for workers in United States and GM mentioned this as one of the reasons for the loss they suffered this quarter. The other reason is that GM is still making gas guzzlers, while people are looking for high mileage cars.

Richard Wagoner, GM chairman and chief executive officer, said during a speech in Detroit last week that, when it comes to healthcare, Americans spend more and get less than any other industrialized nation.
“In the U.S., healthcare costs are rising at an annual rate of 14 percent to 18 percent and already account for 15 percent of our gross domestic product – 50 percent higher than the next most expensive country,” Wagoner said during a speech at the annual Auto Tech conference in Detroit.
“The worst part of all this is that these very high costs don’t necessarily buy the best healthcare,” Wagoner added. “If our cars performed at the same quality levels as our medical system, nobody would buy our cars,” he said.[Bush, Kerry: Where Do They See Cars? ]

United States has so many companies offering healthcare and if there is competition the prices should reduce. But Canada with its National Healthcare system is able to provide healthcare for all its citizens for a much cheaper price and so American companies are forced to outsource to reduce the costs.