This piece, about the massive shift in film industry jobs from Atlanta to the UK, came across the transom yesterday (boldface mine):

Across the U.S., 29% fewer movies and TV series with budgets above $40 million started filming in 2024 versus 2022, according to data company ProdPro. In the U.K., that number grew by 16%. Its tax credit is similar to Georgia’s, but workers there are generally paid less, and studios don’t have to cover their health insurance.

If business owners’ and managers’ opposition to universal healthcare (e.g., Medicare for All*) were grounded in money, such as additional taxes, they should support it in a heartbeat because they would not bear the full cost of healthcare themselves–and when has an American business not wanted to externalize costs to other parties?

But if you view employer-based health insurance as a way to keep employees docile, then opposition makes sense. And many business owners and managers are more concerned about employees getting uppity than they are saving money, even if occasionally they do make cost-based decisions like Marvel did.

*Medicare for All is sort of a misnomer: what most non-experts who support Medicare for All envision would be more akin to Medicaid for All.