I was thinking about how the government would run our health care system as a monopoly. I thought I'd check out another government monopoly and see how they are doing....Amtrak.
Let's see the government has been subsidising (running) Amtrak for about 35 years and what what has been their overall profit during that time? $0
As I was reading their 2008 annual report, I thought I would point out some interesting statistics:
Amtrak loses 1 billion dollars a year, every year.
Amtrak employees agreed to a Union contract in 2007 that gave them a 12% raise. Not bad for a company that never has made money. Total revenue for Amtrak in 2008; 2.4 billion, total salaries paid 1.6 billion. That leaves a total of 800 million to actually run the trains (fuel, train maintenance, etc)
Amtrak pays no taxes, no federal, state or local taxes.
Amtrak is receiving 1.2 billion in stimulus funds.
Amtrak averages 60-80% on-time performance. So you have about a 1 in 5 chance of making it on time if you travel by train.
It is only the government that could operate a company losing one billion dollars a year, with the advantage of having a monopoly, and not having to pay any taxes. This is insanity.
If the government runs health care like is runs Amtrak; I give us about 5 years till we hand the keys of this country over to the Chinese.
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