By Linda Chavez
The Boston Herald
Monday, October 19, 2009
“That’s not the change America voted for.”
The implied criticism of President Barack Obama comes not from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News but from the AFL-CIO in a newspaper ad last week letting the president and congressional Democrats know unions’ “bottom line for health care reform.”
The unions are calling in their chits. If health care legislation doesn’t include a public option, they won’t support it. And if it does include a tax on so-called gold-plated plans, they’ll oppose it.
No wonder White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been meeting behind closed doors with Democrats trying to craft a final bill. He’s more afraid of a few union bosses than he is the thousands of voters who have flocked to town hall meetings to oppose health care reform. Without the unions and their money, no Democrat can win the White House and Democratic control of the House and Senate might slip away.
The irony is that unions helped create the health care mess in the first place. Ever wonder why most Americans receive their health insurance through work? After all, we don’t get our home or car insurance through our employers. Nor do most employers pay directly for other essentials like housing or food.
Our current employer-provided health insurance dates back to World War II, when FDR’s National War Labor Board tried to impose wage and price controls to stem inflation during the war boom years. But the board found it easier to impose price controls than effective wage controls since it was possible to simply shift pay increases from cash into employer-provided benefits like health insurance. Such benefits were exempt from the board’s control and weren’t subject to taxes, making employer-provided health insurance even more attractive.
As a result, unions began demanding generous health care benefits as part of their bargaining strategy, which is why so many of the Cadillac health care plans cover unionized workers.
But having employers buy health insurance for their employees never made good sense. For one thing, it made it difficult for an employee to change jobs without risking losing health care coverage. It also made it harder for individuals to choose the kind of care they wanted.
So now the unions want to have their cake and eat it, too.
The rest of the article is at The Boston Herald.
