Imagine. ObamaCare is forcing up costs. And the
unions are upset!
That is, the unions which worked so hard to pass
ObamaCare. It seems someone finally noticed that
mandating benefits and imposing regulations has a tendency to …
increase costs. Increases which workers are stuck
paying. Who would have imagined such a result? It’s not
like anyone warned them, right??
Reports the Wall Street Journal:
Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama administration’s
health-care overhaul when it was up for debate. Now that the law is
rolling out, some are turning sour.
Union leaders say many of the law’s requirements will drive up
the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers
less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps
on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment
measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay
on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.
To offset that, the nation’s largest labor groups want their
lower-paid members to be able to get federal insurance subsidies
while remaining on their plans. In the law, these subsidies were
designed only for low-income workers without employer coverage as a
way to help them buy private insurance.
In early talks, the Obama administration dismissed the idea of
applying the subsidies to people in union-sponsored plans,
according to officials from the trade group, the National
Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, that represents
these insurance plans.
It’s nice that economic reality sometimes intrudes in the
world of organized labor.
Well, only partially. Naturally, the unions’ solution
is more government subsidies. Obviously the fact that
Americans already face $222 trillion in unfunded
federal liabilities is of no consequence. Just open
Washington’s spigots a little more and all will be well.
Sigh …
irish19| 1.31.13 @ 9:23AM
Schadenfreude, sweet sweet schadenfreude.
And a big fat "We told you so."
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Maybe, just maybe now they'll start to wake up. I only hope it's not too late.
JD| 1.31.13 @ 12:32PM
You don't get it. The unions and the Democrats will unite behind the claim that ObamaCare needs to go FARTHER, handing out all the additional subsidies that this article mentions. They'll tell the world that it was a mistake to initially "compromise" so much.
The result of the failure of ObamaCare will be a move further left, not right. Until we do something about the Left's incredible dishonesty, we're in trouble.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 1.31.13 @ 2:41PM
There's only two solutions to healthcare in the United States and Obamacare is not it. One is you either completely nationalize/socialize American healthcare or you break the monopoly of the AMA and the insurance companies so health care companies can compete lowering prices.
CopyKatnj| 1.31.13 @ 7:35PM
I thought many unions were exempt as are 2000 other companies along with all of Nevada. And Nebraska I'm not sure of exemption but they got the only independent tuition lending bank in America.
Sixgun| 2.1.13 @ 12:30PM
These rumblings are pre-planned and are the first step in claiming that Obamacare didn't go far enough. Costs are still too high, lets go back and amend the law to a single-payer system so we can get those costs down, which was their goal all along. What they really want is a national health care system ran by the government.