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Is GE dancing to the White House piper?
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
05/08/09 1:13 PM EDT
General Electric, more intimately tied in with government than nearly any other company, rolled out a new intiative this week, called "healthymagination." That odd name draws a parallel to GE's 2005 initiative "ecomagination."
Like ecomagination, healthymagination held its launch event not at corporate headquarters in Greenwich, Conn., but here in D.C. The Beltway-centrism of these GE programs is telling. For ecomagination, it's obvious: the only way to make money off of solar and wind power--and especially off of greenhouse gas credits--is by also obtaining or preserving subsidies and regulations that create demand for such investments. The story may be similar for healthymagination.
President Obama is calling for a greater government role in health care. He has proposed allowing all Americans onto a government-run plan that would compete with private insurers, and he has also proposed government cost-containment measures. This could be worrisome to GE, which makes expensive diagnostic equipment. Here's a line from a Bloomberg News piece in March discussing Obama's cost containment efforts:
The measure may hinder equipment sales that accounted for more than half of GE's $17.4 billion in health-care sales last year, or about 5 percent of overall revenue. The imaging unit at Siemens generated 262 million euros ($328.7 million) in profit in the fiscal first quarter, a fifth of net income, the manufacturer reported Jan. 27.
And here is how the New York Times explains healthymagination:
General Electric is shifting the strategy in its $17 billion-a-year health equipment and technology business, seeking to broaden its reach with more lower-cost products.
Healthymagination seems to be taking at least some of its cues from the White House.
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