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WASHINGTON -- Labor leaders irate over a proposed tax on high-value health insurance plans met with President Barack Obama on Monday to express their frustration over his support for the levy. Some labor officials have warned Democrats of political fallout for backing the tax.
The president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, said there was a frank discussion at the nearly two-hour White House meeting with about a dozen heads of the country's biggest labor unions. Earlier in the day Trumka delivered a broadside to Obama and Senate Democrats who are planning to pay for overhauling the nation's health care system with a tax on insurance plans that union leaders fear could hit their workers.
Trumka warned that Democrats risk catastrophic election defeats similar to 1994 if they fail to come up with a health bill labor likes.
"A bad bill could have that kind of effect - a place where people sit at home" - as happened in 1994, when Democrats lost 54 House seats and eight in the Senate, costing them control of Congress, Trumka told reporters.
The head of the International Association of Firefighters, Harold A. Schaitberger, made similarly threatening remarks in a statement Monday. "The president's support for the excise tax is a huge disappointment and cannot be ignored. If President Obama continues to support it and signs a bill that includes the excise tax on workers, we will hold him accountable," said Schaitberger was not among the attendees at the White House meeting.
The AFL-CIO's Trumka made his remarks before delivering a speech in which he bashed the tax proposal in the Senate's health overhaul bill, contending that it "drives a wedge between the middle class and the poor."
"The bill rightly seeks to ensure that most Americans have health insurance. But instead of taxing the rich, the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers' health plans - not just union members' health care; most of the 31 million insured employees who would be hit by the excise tax are not union members," Trumka said hours before going to the White House. "This is a policy designed to benefit the elites."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ress-obama-proposed-health-care-cadillac-tax/
Could it be? Unions defecting from the democrat party would spell complete disaster in November 2010. Apparently--Americans are waking up to the fact--that there is no free lunch when it comes to the--will be required--medical insurance. Now we have all the major unions threatening the democrat party. I never thought I would see that day--
The president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, said there was a frank discussion at the nearly two-hour White House meeting with about a dozen heads of the country's biggest labor unions. Earlier in the day Trumka delivered a broadside to Obama and Senate Democrats who are planning to pay for overhauling the nation's health care system with a tax on insurance plans that union leaders fear could hit their workers.
Trumka warned that Democrats risk catastrophic election defeats similar to 1994 if they fail to come up with a health bill labor likes.
"A bad bill could have that kind of effect - a place where people sit at home" - as happened in 1994, when Democrats lost 54 House seats and eight in the Senate, costing them control of Congress, Trumka told reporters.
The head of the International Association of Firefighters, Harold A. Schaitberger, made similarly threatening remarks in a statement Monday. "The president's support for the excise tax is a huge disappointment and cannot be ignored. If President Obama continues to support it and signs a bill that includes the excise tax on workers, we will hold him accountable," said Schaitberger was not among the attendees at the White House meeting.
The AFL-CIO's Trumka made his remarks before delivering a speech in which he bashed the tax proposal in the Senate's health overhaul bill, contending that it "drives a wedge between the middle class and the poor."
"The bill rightly seeks to ensure that most Americans have health insurance. But instead of taxing the rich, the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers' health plans - not just union members' health care; most of the 31 million insured employees who would be hit by the excise tax are not union members," Trumka said hours before going to the White House. "This is a policy designed to benefit the elites."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ress-obama-proposed-health-care-cadillac-tax/
Could it be? Unions defecting from the democrat party would spell complete disaster in November 2010. Apparently--Americans are waking up to the fact--that there is no free lunch when it comes to the--will be required--medical insurance. Now we have all the major unions threatening the democrat party. I never thought I would see that day--
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