Max Baucus: “every few minutes, a new Chevy Malibu, a popular family sedan, rolls off the assembly line of General Motors…”

“every few minutes, a new Chevy Malibu, a popular family sedan, rolls off the assembly line of General Motors Corporation's Fairfax plant Kansas City, KS. The invoice price starts at $17,600. And every few minutes, across the ocean, a new Toyota Camry, a popular family sedan, rolls off the assembly line of the Toyota Motor Corporation plant in near Nagoya, Japan. The invoice price starts at about $16,600, a full $1,000 less than the Malibu. One reason for the price difference between the Malibu and the Camry is health care. Yes, health care. For GM, health care costs amount to more than $1,500 for every vehicle it produces. For Toyota, health care costs account for closer to $500 for every vehicle that it produces. That is about the thousand dollars difference. Two-thirds of Americans get their health insurance at their jobs. The system started in World War II, when the Government capped wages. Employers competed for workers by offering more generous fringe benefits. After the war, a Government tax preference further encouraged employers to provide health insurance. Almost all Japanese get their health insurance through their government. That is true of pretty much every other major industrialized country. America's system has yielded high health care costs. The average American spends more than $5,000 a year on health care. That is 53 percent more than the next most costly country. The average Japanese spends only about $2,000 a year on health care.…”