In this country we seem to be deluded by the idea that it is better to maintain a lower tax-burden for the wealthy than to fund nationalized healthcare. Of course, a good part of this is the interests of the wealthy healthcare companies, but the interests of the healthcare companies are beginning to weigh on the success of the whole country.

Today DaimlerChrysler has announced massive layoffs in the American Chrysler division. While there is no question in my mind that I would rather own a Toyota Avalon than anything produced from the American auto manufacturers, there is this small issue of the high costs of healthcare in this country that is detrimental to our competitivness abroad.

The Center for Automotive Research estimates that the additional health care spending at Chrysler is costing the automaker about $600 a car, or more than $1.6 billion a year, compared to its U.S. competitors.

The health care costs are a particularly serious competitive problem for all the Big Three. Even at their U.S. factories, Asian automakers such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan do not have nearly the health care costs as GM, Ford or Chrysler, mostly since they don’t have to worry about health care costs for a large population of retired workers. And at their Japanese plants, health care is a government-provided benefit.

Chrysler spent $2.2 billion on U.S. health care in 2006, with fully two-thirds of that going to cover retirees and their families.

CNN Money → Chris Isidore → How Chrysler’s gains turned to pain

I have not heard that Japan is paying their workers considerably less than are workers in the US, so the usual canard about the unions being to blame seems specious. In addition, I would point out that the noise about nationalized healthcare being problematic in other nations should be taken as a challenge for American ingenuity, not a reason to hide like a coward and refuse to confront reality.