Labor's $60 Billion Payoff

[purespeed]

Sorry this is so long, but I think it is a good read.

JANUARY 16, 2010

A health tax that hits everyone except the Democratic base.

Democrats seem impervious to embarrassment as they buy votes for ObamaCare, but their latest move makes even Nebraska's Ben Nelson look cheap: The 87% of Americans who don't belong to a union will now foot the bill for a $60 billion giveaway to those who do.

The Senate bill was financed in part by a 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance coverage. The White House backs this "Cadillac tax" as one of the few remaining cost-control tokens. But Big Labor abhors the tax because union benefits tend to be far more generous than average, and labor leaders and House Democrats have been throwing a political tantrum for weeks.

So emerging from their backrooms, Democrats have agreed to extend a special exemption from the Cadillac tax to any health plan that is part of a collective-bargaining agreement, plus state and local workers, many of whom are unionized. Everyone else with a higher-end plan will start to be taxed in 2013, but union members will get a free pass until 2018.

Ponder that one for a moment. Two workers who are identical in every respect—wages, job, health plan—will be treated differently by the tax system, based solely on union membership.

Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO says this and other concessions mean the excise tax will raise some $60 billion less than the original Senate version. Democrats are probably going to charge investors for this political perk, by extending the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to capital gains for the first time ever—on top of all the other taxes. Just what the economic recovery needs.

Meanwhile, the extra five-year dispensation gives labor lobbyists plenty of time to negotiate a permanent extension for the Democratic union base, even as labor is being armed with an important new organizational tool: Eliminating the secret ballot in union elections might be unnecessary when unions have an exclusive tax privilege at their political disposal. Right-to-work states will also be punished because they are less unionized.

The payoff shows that no one is doing a better job of rebutting the White House's technocratic cost-control claims than its own party. How exactly is the excise tax going to drive down premiums when a good part of the most expensive plans is exempted? The new union deal follows a similar one with Harry Reid that exempted the 17 states in which health costs are highest, plus longshoremen, construction workers, some farmers and sundry other liberal allies.

Amid the Beltway panic over Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts and deepening public revulsion about sweetheart deals like Mr. Nelson's "Cornhusker kickback," it's more than a little surprising that the White House would be so tone-deaf to even contemplate a demand that is so contrary to basic fairness. But somehow Democrats have convinced themselves that the only tourniquet that will stop the political bleeding is to pass a bill that even President Obama admitted on Thursday is deeply unpopular.

Democrats wouldn't have to pay these partisan bribes had they chosen to write a less radical bill that could attract Republican votes. But then they would have had to pass something other than this destructive and unaffordable exercise in entitlement politics.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...n_AboveLEFTTop

[Ron61]

This whole thing is about power and greed, not helping the American people. They are just there to pay for those idiots insane programs. But it won't work around here as to many businesses that have had to shut down will not be re-opening and there will be far less people hired back to the stores when the economy does finally recover if it can before Obama and his group have us as a division of the world Govt. The last figures for this county released a week ago said that over 48% of the lost jobs here would not be recovered as the few remaining businesses have found out they can survive and produce as much without the over paid union people standing around doing nothing. This area basically went into a tail spin when they did away with the logging industry as we have no industrial plants up here. I would guess that a good 75% of the people still working are doing so in stores and service jobs, some of which do pay pretty good. But basically this is a retirement area with a lot of retired and disabled people and they are not going to have a lot of work available. So far the stimulus package has produced absolutely nothing in the way of jobs in this area and our roads are really bad.

Ron

[Excaliber]

The dam union people are really starting to piss me off...

[Ron61]

Obama is pro union. They will vote for anything that gives them money.

Ron

[Stentor]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

The dam union people are really starting to piss me off...

Yeah, the aforementioned deal with the unions smells just a bit, huh Ernie?

Let's see you try to justify this one.

[October-1881]

I just love it. If left alone, the democrats will socialize everything. The last time I witnessed anything even close to this was Jimmy Carter and we all knew what he did for us (God bless him), he brought us Ronald Reagan.

[Ron61]

But there was still enough of the country left to be rescued after Carter. I fear a few more years of this group and there won't be any country left to rescue.

Ron

[Ralphy]

Not as smelly as DC's economic recovery, while the remainder of the country falters.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ron61

This whole thing is about power and greed, not helping the American people.

It has been this way for a long time.

[Ron61]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It has been this way for a long time.

True, but just not in such obvious "We don't care what the people want," conditions. At least others tried to hide it, but this group flaunts there not answering to the people any more.

Ron

[Excaliber]

So you think Obama rolled over for the Unions and gave them some kind of sweetheart deal?

...some people believe anything. Fact is the Administration was pushing hard for this Cadillac tax. There has been a lot of give and take to get the bill passed, this is just another necessary compromise. The blame falls entirely on the Unions for this one. There is no "justification" hard case right wingers would understand.

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

So you think Obama rolled over for the Unions and gave them some kind of sweetheart deal?

...some people believe anything. Fact is the Administration was pushing hard for this Cadillac tax. There has been a lot of give and take to get the bill passed, this is just another necessary compromise. The blame falls entirely on the Unions for this one. There is no "justification" hard case right wingers would understand.

Obviously a deal was struck to exempt the unions and pass the tax on to someone(s) without a block vote. Does it matter if the White House pushed the deal or if Democrat controlled Congress pushed the deal. The partisan selective deal was made, and both the WH and Congress were party to it. 50/50 or 90/10 or 05/95 doesn't matter.
So $60 Billion of the financing for this fiasco now must come from somewhere else. Since we are now at a place where one citizen in TWO does not pay any income tax, sources of a spare $60 Billion are becoming scarce. They'll just throw the missing $60B on the National Debt. YES, he said he wouldn't, but we know he lies.

Maybe they'll try to cut Medicare by $560B instead of $500B. To give you an idea how well that will work.
An eye clinic charges around $4000.00 for cataract surgery. The Medicare APPROVED amount for that is $1100.00 So the Medicare beneficiary pays $220.00 [or his supplement does.} and Medicare pays the clinic $880.00[the balance, BY LAW, is written off, a separate deal for the patient to pay more is ILLEGAL] So what if Medicare cuts the payment by the 21% they are talking about? The clinic then gets $695.20 for a $4000. procedure. Which means they STOP taking Medicare patients. As IS already being seen.
So this health care INSURANCE fiasco will provide INSURANCE to about 20 million more people than have it now. People that only TAKE from society, they pay in and/or contribute NOTHING. And as a result the 49 million people on Medicare, people that have paid into it ALL their WORKING lives and pay $100,00 a month each out of their Social Security checks [deducted before they get the checks] will more and more be denied health CARE.
Such a brilliant plan, No death panels needed if seniors cannot get health CARE, they'll die soon enough.

[sunman]

Carpenters Union Local 329 Okla City Health Plan

75% coverage up to $10,000, than 80% coverage up to $250,000 max per year.

No out of pocket max. Most policies go 100% at $2,500 to $5,000. If your share is so large that you can't pay, you go bankrupt and they take all but one acre of your land but everything else you own is gone. Section 13 Okla Bankruptcy Code.

$2,000 max cap per year on prescriptions. If you need chemo, thats to bad, they don't pay.

If your to sick to work your coverage stops.

This policy costs $4.00 per hour worked. Thats about $550 per month per person. Blue Cross/ Blue Shield.

Okla City Union Carpenters make about $19.35/ hour take home.

Facts and figures.

Cadillac? More like Ford Pinto.

As Union membership has declined in the USA the National Debt has grown and the economy has tanked.

Keep voting Republican/ Democrat. Keep buying Chinese goods. Keep buying non American cars. Keep blaming others for the problems you cause.

Divide and conquer. Julius Ceasar. YOUR Congresspeople and Senators (I didn't vote for any of them) live by this motto as they take corporate donations and sell us out.

[CobraEd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0bh77k2Wdk




.

[Excaliber]

Good review of the carpenters Union. Cutting to the chase here the Cadillac plans really targeted were the UAW health plans.

Where will the money come from? Yup, funding just took a big hit, no question. Looks like the tax payers will be funding Cadillac plans for the UAW for the next 5 years or so. That sucks! Even after that, eye and dental costs for their plan, still won't be counted against the total. $8,900 for a single guy (I think thats the new ball park number). $24,000 for a family plan. When you take away eye and dental they may not even reach the threshold requiring any tax when it eventually comes around.

OK, so we can blame Obama all day long, fact is, the UAW just screwed the tax payers, again...

[Jamo]

Obama was a labor attorney representing unions before he became a politician...we faced his firm a few times in the 90s.

So...duh re his throwing unions mountains of bones, which, by the way, are the main ingredient of Kool-Aid.

Ernie...you have nuthin to win on this one.

[Excaliber]

I understand Obama's support for the Unions in general, and I really dislike it! Nothing here for me to "win" one way or the other. I just see this as yet another item that has been scratched of the health reform bill. While some think we could scratch more or even kill it all together, I feel like we have scratched off to much already. And NOW the freakin' Unions get a deal too?

OK, Obama screwed that part up, but I'm still pissed at the Unions!

Such is the way things get done during negotiations. No one "wins", both sides take a hit until everyone is "mostly" OK with it.

[sunman]

UAW membership has dropped from a high of 1.5 million in 1979 to 431,000 in 2009. GM shut down the Okla City plant and moved production to Mexico and China.
.
You can relax, it won't be long before the Unions are gone.

And by the way, the military (Tinker Air Force Base) bought the plant and now taxpayers pay for 100% of the operation at God only knows what cost. One thing for sure, profits are 0 and no local taxes are paid.