[So Cal Rocket]

The health-care costs — about $5.5 billion a year and growing

Something doesn't look right here... GM has 324,000 employees... so this works out to be almost $17,000/year/employee in Health Care costs.

I work at a manufacturing company... we are working to drive down our health care costs at our division because we are WELL ABOVE the national average in heath care cost/employee at around $7,000/employee. National average IIRC is around $4,500/employee.

[hunter112]

The coming health care crisis is going to hit more than just the uninsured, the poorly-run companies are going to see problems first. In five or ten years, the rest of the system goes into full collapse.

[gogeo]

That number includes retiree benefits, which is what's really killing GM.

[hubbubhubbub]

The health care cost figure includes living retirees so your arithmetic is faulty.