Big Labor Gets Sweetheart ObamaCare Deal

Some people are more equal than others.

I told you yesterday about the tentative deal struck by the unions and Obama, exempting big labor from paying taxes on their Cadillac health care plans. Funny isn’t it? Unionized government workers, whose salary and benefits the rest of us pay, will be exempt. Unionized GM workers, whose salaries and benefits the rest of us subsidize, will be exempt. And those Americans who are non-union, yet fortunate enough to have high quality plans won’t be exempt. Another thing to keep in mind – the Cadillac tax isn’t adjusted for inflation, so today’s $15,000 policy may meet the threshold in a decade or so. And when the exemption expires, in 2018, the health insurance industry will probably be obliterated and we’ll all be forced into a single-payer system.

Today it looks like they’re closer than ever to reaching an agreement, giving the unions a sweetheart deal.

The Washington Post: The White House has reached a tentative agreement with labor leaders to tax high-cost health insurance policies, sources said Thursday. The agreement clears one of the last major obstacles on the path to final passage of comprehensive health care legislation.White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said health care negotiators are “very, very close” to an overall deal and hope to have resolved most of the differences between health bills approved by the House and the Senate by day’s end. But White House officials privately cautioned that their optimism does not mean that a final health care deal will be formally announced Thursday, and senior lawmakers said they are unlikely to present a compromise package to their members before early next week.

A deal with the unions to tax high-cost plans would represent a major step forward, however. According to a labor source familiar with the talks, the agreement calls for a 40 percent tax surtax on policies that cost more than $24,000 for family coverage and $8,900 for individuals, a slight increase over the levels in a bill approved by the Senate on Christmas Evel. Dental and vision benefits would be exempt, and the threshold for taxation would be raised by at least $3,000 in high-cost states, for high-cost professions and for workers whose policies cost more because of their age or their gender.

Health plans negotiated on behalf of state and local workers, or as part of collective-bargaining agreements, would be exempt for five years after the 2013 effective date, giving labor leaders time to negotiate new contracts, the source said, adding that the deal was cut during nearly 15 hours of talks that stretched until nearly midnight at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House on Wednesday.

Senior lawmakers returned Thursday afternoon to the White House, where staff continued working throughout the day. Gibbs said announcement of any final deal could stretch into early next week, but his tone was hopeful, saying that “tremendous progress” was made in the eight-hour meeting with negotiators on Wednesday.

The so-called Cadillac tax is a key source of financing for a proposal to dramatically expand health coverage to the uninsured. But it is also an important tool for reining in skyrocketing health care costs, and President Obama has insisted that it be included in the package. …

The unions have pushed for ObamaCare. They’ve spent millions to elect candidates who will vote for it. They just want no part of paying for it. That’s for the rest of us to do.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.