Kansas City, Missouri—hometown to winners of not one, but two seasons of Survivor, as well as the most recent season of American Idol—lost its bid on Sunday to land a $375 million Bombardier aircraft plant, which will instead be located closer to the Canadian company's headquarters in Montreal.

Why did the Paris of the Plains lose out to its Quebecois competitor? Globalization brings many variables into play, but Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) says it was health care that tipped the scale, according to the Kansas City Star's Jason Noble.

She's got a point. According to a recent policy paper by our New America colleagues Len Nichols and Sarah Axeen, U.S. manufacturing firms pay nearly three times as much per hour in health benefits as their Canadian competitors.

We've talked about the Kevin Bacon Theory of Health Care and the Economy, but when it comes to the competitiveness of American businesses in the global economy, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow from Michigan has made the case for health reform far more eloquently. She spoke at a recent New America event on Employer Health Costs in a Global Economy, and we particularly remember the scene she described in her home state of Michigan:

[W]e look across the river at the great country of Canada... [and] we see plants, auto plants, being built across the river. The wages are the same. There is Canadian UAW. The environmental standards are the same or stronger. The only difference—the only difference is healthcare. We are losing jobs whether it is a race to the bottom, coupling healthcare and wages, or whether it is just simply looking at healthcare differences. We are losing jobs and we have a competitive disadvantage.

Stabenow's insights drive home the fact that our health care crisis in the U.S. creates an economic as well as a moral imperative for reform. We must find a more sustainable way to finance health care in this country—one that will leave our businesses more competitive and our workers more secure.