'Free' health care would have a very high price

Twenty-five years ago, I was the general manager of a small industrial machinery company. The owner retired and sold the company to a European conglomerate. When the CEO came to the U.S. to talk about the company's future, he asked me how much I was paid.

My salary and bonus came to $45,000 and when told this, his eyes practically fell out of his head. He told me that I just became the second highest paid employee behind himself.

Even though his other companies were much larger, most GMs and directors were paid about half what I was paid. I asked how this could be and how people could live on such a small amount.

He explained that between sales tax, corporate income tax, VAT tax and other taxes, there simply wasn't enough money left to pay anyone a larger amount.

If one of his company's sales dipped and he had to release some employees, the corporation was on the hook for 100 percent of their unemployment compensation for two years and the amount was very close to their salary. Very few of these people ever got another job until their unemployment compensation ran out. This fact caused him to be very cautious about hiring new people or expanding the business.

He went on to say national unemployment was a constant 15 percent, but no one in their country was in poverty.

They received monetary aid, food stamps and lived for free in council houses like the Grenfell Tower in London that killed 80 people when it caught on fire in June. No one was in poverty, but there were no suburban communities like we have here with quarter-acre lots and 2,000-square-feet homes.

There were two classes of people. One class consisted of the highest government employees, industrialists like himself, bankers, and old money wealthy landowners. The second class was everyone else. But best of all, everyone received free health care. His last words to me before he went home were to not expect a pay increase for a few years no matter how well the company performs. Sales did increase and he kept his word, so after three years, I left the company.

Health care in the U.S. accounts for about 17 percent of our economy or almost $3.5 trillion, just about the same amount as the current federal budget. For those who want national health care, be aware that if it comes to pass, everyone will take a huge pay cut to cover the large increase in taxes needed to pay for it.

Businesses won't expand, unemployment will increase, homeownership will decrease and more people will be, as they say in Europe, "on the dole."

Quoting P.J. O'Rouke, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

John Schadl

Arlington Heights