It is often portrayed by the Old Media that Big Labor is lining up behind Obamacare with gusto. While many unions are doing just that, the not all unions are so happy with Congress’ current plans. We discussed this last month when we reported that the various propositions to tax so-called Cadillac healthcare plans has gotten some unions nervous.
Now, 157 House Democrats have sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi (D, Calif.) declaring their opposition to taxing high-end healthcare plans. One of those reasons is that many unions have given away pay raises in order to enlarge their benefits packages and such a tax will hit union members hard.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., who organized the petition, said the tax would hurt too many middle-class people in addition to the wealthier people it is intended to hit.
“This would have an impact far wider than just the Paris Hiltons of the world,” Courtney told reporters Wednesday.
Leading the charge against these tax plans is the AFL-CIO. As IBD reports:
But Big Labor has cried foul and is lobbying hard against it. Gerry Shea, the AFL-CIO’s top expert on health care policy, says such taxes would hit the plans obtained by union members via collective bargaining.
Union members gave up wages to get broad, comprehensive health care plans, Shea says. They don’t deserve to be taxed for that now, he argues.
“There are a lot of ways to pay for health reform — fairer and better ways — than asking people of moderate incomes to pay for it this way,” Shea told IBD, citing Obama’s earlier, now-discarded proposal to limit itemized tax deductions.
“The fact that they are doing it totally through this excise tax just seems totally unfair,” Shea said.
If a tax on high-end healthcare plans is scrapped, however, the supposed revenue neutral aspect of the bills will be in question. In the Senate, the Baucus “excise tax” on such plans is expected to raise $201 billion over 10 years. Without it, the Congressional Budget Office says that the bill will increase the deficit by $120 billion.
This would go entirely against the president’s claim that he won’t sign the bill since it will add to the deficit.
Tags: dailydose, Sen. Max Baucus, Senate, The Winning Line, unions
Some more basic questions for you arrogant champions of state interveion:
Why do you have so little faith in the American citizen to make rational choices in their own life and want to resort to forcing citizens to buy Health Insurance (and yes, for some Health Insurance purchase makes no sense if they are young and healthy with savings to pay for emergencies or are wealthy/self-payers)? Shouldn’t they be free to make this choice and suffer or benefit as an individual from their decision?
Why do propose and support substituting yours/the government’s judgment for your fellow citizens? Why the mistrust and assumption of the worst about your fellow human beings?
I assume you deem yourself competent and responsible enough to take care of yourself in Health Insurance and medical care matters - why do you assume most Americans are not and need to be forced by the heavy hand of government to accept what YOU deem to be the right choice for them?
Finally, what is your view of the Bill of Rights and Individual Liberty?
As a matter of Personal Freedom and Individual Liberty, this is the most onerous and Unconstitutional law ever considered by the U.S. Congress!
I know that “freedom” and “liberty” don’t appear as huge political topics for politicians on either side of the aisle and are not viewed as political “winning issues” by either, but it is a paramount issue to some for a lot of us!
This would be the first time EVER that the Federal government has FORCED private citizens to buy a private good or service (and please, don’t reply with analogies to Car Insurance which is a state level issue – plus, I don’t have to own a car, I do have to have a body)!
You propose to turn our one of most basic life choices into a collective political matter instead of an individual/family matter. And it leaves us open to the impersonal and often arbitrary decisions of a technocratic and leviathan state a whole range of issues to be regulated and micromanaged by an ever present nanny state - a type of state our Constitution was designed specifically to prevent.
Acceptance of this principle will surely lead to a very slippery slope where just about any action can be forced on the American public by force of law. If buying health insurance is good and within the scope of Federal Government powers, then, for example, what is to stop the Congress from enacting a Law that say Mandates all Americans run 2 miles a day, etc? After all, a majority may agree that this is “good” and therefore now within the scope of the Federal Government’s powers to mandate/force upon individuals based on this precedent you would like to set.
The basic idea of the Bill of Rights is to protect the Individuals and unpopular minorities from such heavy handed government coercion and intrusion into their private lives.
This is Unconstitutional and cannot be allowed to stand if we are to remain a free and independent people!
If you truly take your oath to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution seriously, then you MUST change your position and be against the Individual Mandate!
I am no fool and fully understand from your actions and statements that such quaint, and from your point of view, antiquated notions such as Individual Rights, Liberty, Personal Freedom, and the proper role of the Federal government very seldom enter your thought processes in your never ending quest to bring us Utopia on earth thru the use of government force and power.
However, in this case, I beg you pause for at least a few minutes and open your mind and think about what you are doing here – you are asking us to pay a huge cost in dollars and liberty to completely overturn as system that may be imperfect but has saved so many millions. You demand perfection from the Free Market and Individuals yet you do not hold Government, which has a much worse track record, accountable for to the same standard. You envision that further state intervention will bring about vast improvement when the facts and current outcomes do that hold that to be true – and the resulting unforeseen consequences and may be far worse than the Health Care Utopia you are hoping to create!