Joint Letter on Publicly Funded Healthcare
Alain Batty - President and CEO, Ford Motor Company of Canada
Basil Hargrove - National President, CAW-Canada
September 10, 2002
Canada's publicly funded health care system provides essential and affordable health care services for all Canadians, regardless of their income.
Publicly funded health care also enhances Canada's economic performance in several important ways.
The auto industry is Canada's most important export industry; it directly employs over 150,000 Canadians in high-wage jobs, supports hundreds of thousands of other spin-off jobs, produces $90 billion worth of shipments per year, and generates billions of dollars in tax revenues for all levels of government in Canada. The success of this industry has been crucial to Canada's economic progress over the past decade.
Canada's health care system has been an important ingredient in the auto industry's performance.
Workers in the auto industry, and in the many manufacturing and service industries which supply automakers, benefit directly from access to public health care services. Thanks to this system, they are healthier and more productive.
Employers in the auto industry, meanwhile, enjoy significant total labour cost savings because most health care services are supplied through public programs (rather than through private insurance plans).
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To this end, Ford Motor Company and CAW-Canada jointly urge the federal and provincial governments to take appropriate actions to
preserve the public health care system, secure its funding base, and modernize the range of services which it covers. In addition to reinforcing the quality and accessibility of health care for Canadians, these measures would also help to ensure the long-run success of Canada's auto industry.
Alain Batty
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited.
Basil "Buzz" Hargrove
National President, CAW-Canada.
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp051215a.shtml
