Unions Collect A Health Care Payoff

From Investors.com

Politics: Big Labor carved out a tax exemption for union members’ health plans on Thursday, paving the way for passage of health care reform. Call it what it is: a bribe to cronies in an increasingly corrupt overhaul.

With Nebraska winning “free” coverage of its Medicare costs in the Senate version of the bill, and Louisiana getting a tax exemption of its own, what’s one more bone to a favored political group on a bill Democrats are determined to pass no matter what?

That’s what made it easy for labor leaders, following a sit-down with the White House, to carve out a special set-aside for union members’ gold-plated health benefits acquired under collective bargaining agreements. Nobody gets more special treatment from Democrats than Big Labor.

So if the bill passes, unions pay nothing on their health care for years until they can negotiate new contracts, while the rest of us plutocrats shell out a 40% tax on plans worth $8,500 for individuals and now $24,000 for families. No wonder the public is liking this odious legislation less and less?

“This is a policy designed to benefit elites,” said AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka in a speech Monday, demanding his union exemption. And yes, it started as a plan to stick it to the rich, targeting benefits “like the ones that the executives at Goldman Sachs have, the $40,000 policies,” as White House adviser David Axelrod says when he plays the class warfare card.

The whole concept blew up in unions’ faces, however, when they realized as many as a quarter of their own members — about four million and their families — had such plans. But instead of working toward a fair system for all, they sought and got a set-aside.

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