Organized labor is bitterly disappointed with the Senate Finance Committee’s long-awaited healthcare bill, which was released yesterday.
There’s not a lot for labor to like: the bill contains health insurance mandates but no public option. In other words, if the bill became law, the government would force everyone to buy health insurance from for-profit health insurance companies.
Everyone agrees that insurance is already too expensive. Instead of driving down costs through competition with a public option, the Baucus bill would offer government subsidies for low- and middle-income families to buy insurance that everyone agrees is too expensive.
As usual, Washington (or the Senate committee, at least) is trying to solve a problem by funnelling more money to the companies that caused the problem in the first place.
AFSCME president Gerald McEntee released a sharply critical statement yesterday:
The Senate Finance Committee health care bill is deeply flawed. It does not come close to meeting the needs of America’s working families. Nor does it meet the standards President Obama laid out in his address last week to Congress. There is no employer mandate, no public option, no help for retirees. The bill weakens state insurance regulations and taxes health plans that provide benefits for many middle class families. This bill fails to provide good, affordable coverage and does not protect families from medical bankruptcy. It is unacceptable. We call upon members of the Finance Committee to fix this bill.
The bill taxes so-called “Cadillac” benefit plans, a move that incoming AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka had deemed absolutely unacceptable. Starting in 2013, the bill would slap a 35% tax on plans worth more that $8,000 per person, or $21,000 per family.
Union leaders oppose taxes on health plans because they disproportionately burden union members who have fought hard for good benefits packages. In effect, the tax would be taking money from union families to give back to insurance companies in the form of subsidies.
But remember: This is just the first draft of one of two Senate healthcare bills. The Finance Committee hasn’t even voted on it yet. When the bill finally emerges from the Finance Committee, it will have to be merged with the more progressive bill passed by what was then Ted Kennedy’s Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have significant influence over the final product, and he is signalling that a lot is going to change before the Senate votes on the bill as a whole. So there’s still hope for a bill more to labor’s liking.
