Obama explains why there is no public option in Obamacare

[Hoyt]

82. Here's just one source, but look back at history.

And I'm not saying their opposition was necessarily wrong, but there was union opposition.


"Most advocates of universal health care focus on the opposition of Republicans and insurance companies. But perhaps the most important factor keeping an overhaul off the national agenda is one that few Democrats acknowledge: most of Mr. Gettelfinger's fellow labor leaders don't support a single-payer system either.

The reason comes down to simple self-interest. The United Auto Workers is one of the few private-sector unions that doesn't run its own health plan. Rather, most have created huge companies to administer their workers' plans, giving them a large and often corrupt stake in the current system.

Opposition to a national health care plan is as much a part of the American trade union tradition as the picket line. It goes back to Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, who railed at early Congressional efforts to pass a law mandating employer coverage as Britain had done, which he said had "taken much of the virility out of the British unions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/opinion/big-labors-big-secret.html


Some of that opposition may have waned more recently, but you can bet they were part of the reason Hillary Care and other attempts failed.