Union Letter: Obamacare Will ‘Destroy The Very Health and Wellbeing’ of Workers

[ProSense]

33. Unions are opposed to anything

that appears to work against employer-based health care coverage.

Remember Senator Wyden's Employee Free Choice Act? Unions opposed it for that very reason.

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So Wyden crafted a plan that would offer an escape hatch—if an employer’s insurance was too costly for a family, they could take the money their employer would have spent on insurance for them and shop in the new state exchanges that will show up in 2014. There they might find something cheaper and perhaps more comprehensive. Despite opposition from businesses, Wyden’s Free Choice Voucher plan made it into the final bill. Its life was short, however. When Congress hammered out the budget package a couple of weeks ago, Free Choice Vouchers were gone—a victim of strong-armed lobbying from both business and labor.

Hurrah for The New York Times’s Eric Lichtblau for telling us what happened. The American Benefits Council, a lobbying group for insurers and employers, didn’t like the choice plan because it would have a “destabilizing” impact on employer insurance. Unions said vouchers would create a “death spiral” of higher costs. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said “the program was eliminated because it costs jobs—and jobs are the American people’s top priority.” It’s hard to see how giving workers a shot at cheaper coverage is a job killer, but then in Washington speak sometimes nothing makes sense.

Wyden told the Times that the ultra-powerful Business Roundtable probably killed the vouchers. “Everyone knows the Business Roundtable wanted this killed, and now they can go back with a trophy to say they protected business as usual,” he said. According to Wyden, the Congressional Budget Office said there were no implications for the federal budget since the only money changing hands comes from employees making use of the employer health care subsidy, which is already part of their compensation package.

What’s really the problem? Writing at the Huffington Post, Wyden noted that “if employer premiums continued to rise, more and more Americans would have become eligible for this option and more choice and competition would have been injected into the health insurance market. Not every employer likes this idea that Americans might be able to get good health insurance outside of their job or union.” In other words, letting people out of employer plans might undermine the clout of employers and the unions in the health care biz.

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http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/chipping_away_at_health_reform_part_ii.php?page=all&print=true

Health Reform’s Missing Ingredient
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/opinion/17wyden.html?_r=0

So Much for Choice and Competition
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ron-wyden/so-much-for-choice-and-co_b_847080.html

Unions don't like the delay because they see it as weakening the the employer-employee health care contract.

Of course, those who want more people to have access to the exchanges, see this as an opportunity to strengthen them and give employees more choice.

Howard Dean: Mandate Delay Begins Shift To Government-Financed Health Care System
http://election.democraticunderground.com/10023162211

HHS Ruling Helps Workers But Spells Trouble for Employer Mandate
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023207327