Big Business for Universal Health Care?

Matthew Yglesias links to a BusinessWeek article which highlights wait times for American health care consumers. Of course, this argument is often used against universal health care systems in Canada and the U.K. by those who support privatized health care systems. To me, this isn't really a substantive point: in Canada and the U.K., wait times are common for specialized and elective care, while basic doctor visits are quicker. It's commonly said that hip surgeries in Canada require about a 9 month wait time, and if you are old enough in the U.K. you are simply ineligible for one. In the U.S., you might have to book a doctor's visit a few weeks in advance, but you get emergency care and elective procedures much more quickly. There is a trade-off there, and the U.K./Canadian systems are weighted to one end while the U.S. system is weighted to the other.

But the larger point was missed by both BusinessWeek and Yglesias: those in favor of a universal health care system could find an ally in Big Business. After all, a universal system would remove the high costs of health care provision currently being paid for by businesses. It requires a huge, expensive human resources bureaucracy, as well as opportunity costs of negotiating with insurance companies, form-filling, etc. A case might be made that the efficiency gains in the business sector from removing the burden of providing health insurance for their employees might mitigate some of the costs of nationalizing the insurance industry. I've never seen an empirical approximation of this effect; it may be small. But it's certainly a political tool which could be used by those in favor of universal insurance. If Big Business gets on board with universal coverage, then it's hard to imagine that it won't succeed politically. Why proponents of universal coverage haven't latched on to this is beyond me; perhaps those on the left are simply uncomfortable with building a coalition with Big Business, even though it is a rational alliance.