#private sector

Experts are concerned about the direction Quebec is taking by increasingly turning to the private sector to provide health care to the population (care that is often publicly funded). A new study by Institute for Research and Socioeconomic Information (IRIS) and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that countries with a greater private presence in health care have higher mortality rates and lower life expectancy. The study published on Thursday, analyzed the health-care systems of 25 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The results conclude that countries that allow more room for private for-profit entities in the health-care sector perform worse on seven mortality indicators.

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First, the good news. S&P Global, the international debt rating agency, has dropped ESG scores from the calculation it uses to assess companies’ debt risk, the Financial Times reported. The agency began including ESG scores — which launder left-wing identity politics and climate goals into corporate bureaucracies under the guise of financial sustainability — in 2021. In truly dystopian fashion, a poor score from S&P on something like insufficiently radical diversity training could make it more expensive for a company to borrow money. This incentivized conformity to left-wing ideology and punished companies who resisted. Now, the agency has announced it will replace the numerical ESG scores with “analytical narrative paragraphs,” which are a lot easier for investors to ignore. As one business professor told FT, the move was “just the latest example of a company crumpling in the face of these Republican attacks.” With backlash mounting against woke companies like Bud Light and red states investigations into S&P’s practices re-shaping the narrative around ESG, conservatives deserve to take a victory lap. Grassroots pressure combined with bold leadership certainly made a difference here. But conservatives should not confuse winning the battle with winning the war. Shortly after the announcement, Axios declared that “Corporate America is rebranding ESG.” With “165 pieces of anti-ESG legislation” introduced in Republican states, talk of ESG in corporate earnings calls has declined 64 percent since its peak at the end of 2021. But that doesn’t mean they’ve changed their minds. It just means big businesses are now being “more judicious” about how they proceed, Axios reported. For the left, judicious just means sneaky. Companies know they can no longer overtly brag about their ESG scores without facing a backlash. Nobody wants to be the next Bud Light. For non-consumer facing companies, Republican states can investigate the practices, greatly increasing the cost of doing business. But at the same time, companies can’t just abandon the theory behind ESG — it is still the guiding elite ideology of those with institutional power in Washington, on Wall Street and throughout corporate America. As a policy paper from the Committee for Economic Development notes, “[m]ost companies are pursuing ESG because their various stakeholders want them to — not because of politics.” In this new world, “CEOs” are more interested in their “responsibility to society,” while the “generational change” in employees has led to pressure from below. Additionally, “business value” is increasingly tied to “brand value” — an implicit admission that brand virtue signalling is about shoring up the bottom line. It’s hard to believe that corporate leaders really care about their social “responsibility.” Rather, ESG works as a sort of protection racket from the federal government and dominant institutional investors like BlackRock and Vanguard. The Biden administration has worked to aggressively foist ESG on companies through the Securities and Exchange Commission while vetoing Republican attempts to minimize its stranglehold over the private sector. Meanwhile, the big investment firms have shares in nearly all companies in the S&P 500, which they can use to pressure CEOs. Those who resist open themselves up to legal challenges for hurting shareholder interests, potentially risking their own careers or big money bonuses.