Guaranteed Healthcare

The New York Times is reporting that in a major reversal, the SEC "has told companies they must allow shareholders to vote on a proposal for universal health insurance coverage."

This is huge. I make no claim to be an expert on the SEC or corporate proxy statements, but my power of intuition is  intact, and this strikes me as a transformative event.

Over the years, the commission said, it had reversed its position on certain issues to reflect "changing societal views," and that now appears to be the case with respect to health care.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

The SEC has plunged head first into the defining issue of our time and our generation.

Shareholders, including religious groups and labor unions, have offered the proposal in an effort to draw the nation’s largest corporations deeper into a debate over the future of health care, fast emerging as one of the most important issue in domestic policy.

The S.E.C. has told Boeing, General Motors, United Technologies, Wendy’s International and Xcel Energy over the last several months that they may not omit the health care proposal from their proxy materials.

[emphasis added]

http://www.nytimes.com/...

A seismic shift?

 This came as a surprise to many executives, who said the agency had allowed companies to exclude similar proposals in the past.

 

The skyrocketing cost of healthcare is crippling American industry and destroying and bankrupting American families.

 Total healthcare spending was $2.3 TRILLION in 2007, or $7600 per person. Total health care spending represented 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

U.S. health care spending is expected to increase at similar levels for the next decade reaching $4.2 TRILLION in 2016, or 20 percent of GDP

 

The shareholder proposal asks companies to adopt "principles for comprehensive health care reform" like those devised by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The institute says health insurance should be universal, continuous, "affordable to individuals and families," and "affordable and sustainable for society."

Employers frequently complain about the cost of health benefits for employees and retirees. The shareholder proposal would not require companies to provide health benefits for employees, but asks top corporate executives to view the issue in a broader context, as a question of social policy.

"We are doing what we can as shareholders," said the Rev. Michael H. Crosby, a 68-year-old Capuchin priest who has had discussions with nine companies on behalf of 20 Roman Catholic orders this year. "We come out of a religious tradition, but we are not engaged in a messianic enterprise. We are one voice among many seeking equitable access to health care for all."

Religious groups and labor unions hold billions of dollars worth of stock in their pension and health benefit plans. They submitted the same basic health care proposal to three dozen large companies, and they say they have received respectful hearings at many.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

And what does this mean for the presidency of Barack Obama?

Opposition from businesses was one of the major factors that sank President Bill Clinton’s proposal for universal coverage in 1994. But businesses of all sizes are clamoring for relief from high health costs and have concluded they cannot solve the problem by themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

Shareholder activism has gone largely under the radar, I certainly was not aware of it.  It's clear from the New York Times article, that shareholders have been  pressuring to have big corporations take a stand on universal health insurance — not only or exclusively for company employees, but for the country as a whole.

In the past, the SEC had blocked those efforts. I make the assumption that the healthcare situation has deteriorated to such an extent, that the SEC knows, ignoring the catastrophe is no longer an option.