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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLabor union officials say Obama betrayed them in health-care rollout
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/labor-union-officials-say-obama-betrayed-them-in-health-care-rollout/2014/01/31/2cda6afc-8789-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html
Labor union officials say Obama betrayed them in health-care rollout
By Steven Mufson and Tom Hamburger, Published: January 31
Labor leaders who have spent months lobbying unsuccessfully for special protections under the Affordable Care Act warned this week that the White Houses continued refusal to help is dampening union support for Democratic candidates in this years midterm elections.
Leaders of two major unions, including the first to endorse Obama in 2008, said they have been betrayed by an administration that wooed their support for the 2009 legislation with promises to later address the peculiar needs of union-negotiated insurance plans that cover millions of workers.
Their complaints reflect a broad sense of disappointment among many labor leaders, who say the Affordable Care Act has subjected union health plans to new taxes and mandates while not allowing them to share in the subsidies that have gone to private insurance companies competing on the newly created exchanges.
After dozens of frustrating meetings with White House officials over the past year, including one with Obama, a number of angry labor officials say their members are far less likely to campaign and turn out for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)along with 5 years of corporate snugglies with the Big Boys, I am not surprised. And now the Big Boys want Hillary. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)... on local Democrats during the mid-terms?
Well THAT will show him!!!
Brilliant strategy.
TheKentuckian
(25,035 posts)Loyalty is not the just reward of betrayal and one cannot ably serve two Masters, attempting to represent both labor and capital means someone gets hosed with a side of lip service.
It is impossible to be the party of "everyone", the proposition literally insane because it flies in the face of logic and sometimes even conflicts with physics. You cannot push toward mutually exclusive ends, you have to choose.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Both are against taxing the higher end health insurance plans that usually go to upper management, and to union employees.
If the Obama administration doesn't tax those high end plans, the left will scream bloody murder for letting "capitol" off the hook. If the ACA taxes those plans, then the left screams bloody murder because it will tax some union members.
TheKentuckian
(25,035 posts)Not that I have ever really agreed with the practice but these union members traded away a lot of income and other forms of compensation they have no way to recover for these benefits.
There is no significant revenue from executive plans to get, the pie is the union benefits.
I find your rationalizations flimsy, there was no pressure from liberals to tax anyone's benefits that was shit the right wanted.
What the left wants the executives to do is pay their fucking taxes and cease purchasing of our democracy. "The left" wants everyone to get the kind of care the executives get, not to force everyone into a crappy high deductible plan that only executives and upper management can afford to use.
TheMathieu
(456 posts)"if the unions got their way, people enrolled in their plans would be indirectly getting two tax benefits while most Americans get only one."
Yeah, that sounds fair for the 90% of us that wouldn't get that advantage.
I'm sure those right-to-work Republicans they help elect by pathetically staying at home on election day will sort everything out for them.
FSogol
(45,579 posts)Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)They know they have it, they know the unions will never, ever support or send money to a Republican- so why do much more than a few soundbites?
They save that effort for the corporate support and money that they actually have to "earn".
dsc
(52,172 posts)where the truth lay here. Either these plans are being treated the same as others or not but we have no earthly idea since these writers refused to tell us.
treestar
(82,383 posts)He is a politician, not their husband, or their mob flunky. This kind of thing is just handing Republicans the concept that the unions are mob infested.