Labor union officials say Obama betrayed them in health-care rollout

[brentspeak]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/labor-union-officials-say-obama-betrayed-them-in-health-care-rollout/2014/01/31/2cda6afc-8789-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html

Labor union officials say Obama betrayed them in health-care rollout
By Steven Mufson and Tom Hamburger, Published: January 31

Labor leaders who have spent months lobbying unsuccessfully for special protections under the Affordable Care Act warned this week that the White House’s continued refusal to help is dampening union support for Democratic candidates in this year’s midterm elections.

Leaders of two major unions, including the first to endorse Obama in 2008, said they have been betrayed by an administration that wooed their support for the 2009 legislation with promises to later address the peculiar needs of union-negotiated insurance plans that cover millions of workers.

Their complaints reflect a broad sense of disappointment among many labor leaders, who say the Affordable Care Act has subjected union health plans to new taxes and mandates while not allowing them to share in the subsidies that have gone to private insurance companies competing on the newly created exchanges.

After dozens of frustrating meetings with White House officials over the past year, including one with Obama, a number of angry labor officials say their members are far less likely to campaign and turn out for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections.

[Scuba]

1. Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't want to comment on such a depressing story.

[Enthusiast]

4. Agree. That is one depressing story.

[Wilms]

2. ^

[Le Taz Hot]

3. With today's California fracking news

along with 5 years of corporate snugglies with the Big Boys, I am not surprised. And now the Big Boys want Hillary. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[JoePhilly]

5. So union members who are angry at Obama are going to take it out ...

... on local Democrats during the mid-terms?

Well THAT will show him!!!

Brilliant strategy.

[TheKentuckian]

10. Said local Democrats then are to put pressure on Obama and each other to move the ball forward

Loyalty is not the just reward of betrayal and one cannot ably serve two Masters, attempting to represent both labor and capital means someone gets hosed with a side of lip service.

It is impossible to be the party of "everyone", the proposition literally insane because it flies in the face of logic and sometimes even conflicts with physics. You cannot push toward mutually exclusive ends, you have to choose.

[JoePhilly]

11. Except here, labor and capital want the same thing ...

Both are against taxing the higher end health insurance plans that usually go to upper management, and to union employees.

If the Obama administration doesn't tax those high end plans, the left will scream bloody murder for letting "capitol" off the hook. If the ACA taxes those plans, then the left screams bloody murder because it will tax some union members.

[TheKentuckian]

12. In 2008, it was McShame that wanted to tax benefits not "the left"

Not that I have ever really agreed with the practice but these union members traded away a lot of income and other forms of compensation they have no way to recover for these benefits.

There is no significant revenue from executive plans to get, the pie is the union benefits.

I find your rationalizations flimsy, there was no pressure from liberals to tax anyone's benefits that was shit the right wanted.

What the left wants the executives to do is pay their fucking taxes and cease purchasing of our democracy. "The left" wants everyone to get the kind of care the executives get, not to force everyone into a crappy high deductible plan that only executives and upper management can afford to use.

[TheMathieu]

6. Umm...

"if the unions got their way, people enrolled in their plans would be indirectly getting two tax benefits while most Americans get only one."

Yeah, that sounds fair for the 90% of us that wouldn't get that advantage.

I'm sure those right-to-work Republicans they help elect by pathetically staying at home on election day will sort everything out for them.

[FSogol]

7. SSDD.

[Lee-Lee]

8. DNC takes organized labors votes for granted

They know they have it, they know the unions will never, ever support or send money to a Republican- so why do much more than a few soundbites?

They save that effort for the corporate support and money that they actually have to "earn".

[dsc]

9. It would have been nice if this report had bothered to even try to tell us

where the truth lay here. Either these plans are being treated the same as others or not but we have no earthly idea since these writers refused to tell us.

[treestar]

13. How can he "betray" them?

He is a politician, not their husband, or their mob flunky. This kind of thing is just handing Republicans the concept that the unions are mob infested.