Labor Unions: Obamacare Will 'Shatter' Our Health Benefits

[Dave]

Gotta love the unions... they did their part to make sure that Obamacare got passed by helping get politicians elected and donating money to the democratic party but now they don't seem to think it was such a good thing after all.

Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.

Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

The letter was penned by James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and Donald “D.” Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers.

“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act,” they begin, “you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat…We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”

‘Unintended consequences’ causing ‘nightmare scenarios’

The union leaders are concerned that Obamacare’s employer mandate incentivizes smaller companies to shift their workers to part-time status, because employers are not required to provide health coverage to part-time workers. “We have a problem,” they write, and “you need to fix it.”

“The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe,” they continue. “Perverse incentives are causing nightmare scenarios. First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”

What surprises me about this is that union leaders are pretty strategic when it comes to employee benefits. It was obvious in 2009 that Obamacare’s employer mandate would incentivize this shift. Why didn’t labor unions fight it back then?

Regulations will ‘destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members’

The labor bosses are also unhappy, because of the way Obamacare affects multi-employer health plans. Multi-employer plans, also called Taft-Hartley plans, are health insurance benefits typically arranged between a labor union in a particular industry, such as restaurants, and small employers in that industry. About 20 million workers are covered by these plans; 800,000 of Joseph Hansen’s 1.3 million UFCW members are covered this way.

Taft-Hartley plans, they write, “have been built over decades by working men and women,” but unlike plans offered on the ACA exchanges, unionized workers will not be eligible for subsidies, because workers with employer-sponsored coverage don’t qualify.

Obamacare’s regulatory changes to the small-group insurance market will drive up the cost of these plans. For example, the rules requiring plans to cover adult children up to the age of 26, the elimination of limits on annual or lifetime coverage, and the mandates that plans cover a wide range of benefits will drive premiums upward.

But the key problem is that the Taft-Hartley plans already provide generous and costly coverage; small employers now have a more financially attractive alternative, which is to drop coverage and put people on the exchanges, once the existing collective bargaining agreements are up. That gives workers less reason to join a union; a big part of why working people pay union dues is because unions play a big role in negotiating health benefits.

So the labor leaders are demanding that their workers with employer-sponsored coverage also gain eligibility for ACA subsidies. Otherwise, their workers will be “relegated to second-class status” despite being “taxed to pay for those subsidies,” a result that will “make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable” and “destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”

‘The law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans’

The leaders conclude by stating that, “on behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”

President Obama, of course, pledged that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” But the labor leaders say that, “unless changes are made…that promise is hollow. We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions. We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.”

Delay of employer mandate ‘troubling’

These aren’t the only union leaders who have been critical of Obamacare. Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, said in April that their concerns “have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored,” and that “in the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it.”

Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, is unhappy with the White House’s one-year delay of the employer mandate, calling it “troubling.” Hoffa, Hansen, and Taylor note that “this is especially stinging [and] most disconcerting” because the administration has responded to the concerns of businesses, but not those of labor.

But it’s the employer mandate which is responsible for all of the disruptions that Trumka’s labor brothers are complaining about. If we repealed the employer mandate, we’d get rid of the incentive that restaurants and other employers have to cut the hours of part-time employees.

Government health care harms unions

What a lot of people may not realize is that for much of our history, labor unions opposed universal coverage. “Unions…derive some advantage of good will, power, or profit from serving as a financial intermediary in health care,” writes Paul Starr in his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the American health-care system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine.

If unions’ role in negotiating health coverage is taken over by the government, unions lose a big chunk of their utility. “Employers and unions had both tried to use medical care to strengthen their hand in the battle for workers’ allegiances,” Starr continues.

Labor unions opposed FDR’s half-hearted attempt at universal coverage, and split on Truman’s related proposal. Unions were fine with Medicare and Medicaid, because health benefits for retirees and poor people weren’t as relevant to their interests. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the goals of progressives and labor unions became closely aligned on national health care.

Now, my primary concern isn’t the power and influence of labor unions—rather, it’s the ability of Americans to have access to good jobs and affordable health insurance. And those latter goals are best achieved in a system where people buy health coverage for themselves, instead of getting it through their employers or the government.

That Obamacare encourages more people to buy insurance on their own, in part by incentivizing employers to drop health coverage, is one of the law’s few salutary qualities. It’s unsurprising that this outcome makes labor unions unhappy. But they had every opportunity to take the bill in a different direction in 2009. That they didn’t is no one’s fault but their own.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/15/labor-leaders-...

[Willy]

This only clarifies the fact that liberalism is indeed a mental disorder. Even though conservatives have been saying all along that this will happen the liberals continued, even to this day, to support Obama and the Democrats who are hell bent aon socializing America and gaining complete control over our lives. There's really no where to turn for help because the Republicans are going along with the liberals agenda. I'm afraid the baby boomers have led us into the abyss and it will take us generations to get out of it, if we can get out at all. 

[easymoney]

How do you come up with "the baby boomers" have led us into an abyss?

The majority of the baby boomers were smart enough to NOT vote for O'bama

Not to mention, we paid into SS and Medi care for about 55 years.

[Willy]

The current Senate is made up of 60% boomers and the House is made up of 65% boomers. Boomers are between the age of 49 and 67. These are the people making the decisions for all of us. Most of them are liberal, even the so called conservative Republicans. It's just that the era in which boomers were brought up was the golden age of liberalism and it has shown itself in the legislation and Government expansion and control that has been taking place.

[easymoney]

Exactly why I'm a firm believer in term limits. My God, some of them have been there for their entire life.

Come into office clean, then the stench of the beltway elite grows all over you .But, you leave office rich

[masonco]

Actually it was the college kids, and the 20-30 year olds who voted him in. Most "baby Boomers" I know understood that they are losing all the monies they paid into medicare for 50 years or more...The reason the baby boomers are an issue now is they are now trying to claim the monies they should be entitled to...the money that was transferred to the general budget during the Johnson and ?? years. That money went to balance the budget and was supposed to be returned.

[XLFD]

Funny video, Willy.

[Willy]

X. It's supposed to be an exaggeration showing  the mindset of a liberal but after watching it a few times it truly reveals the way liberals approach an argument about the use of Government in our lives and it also shows the way they expand an idea to create an almost insane way of reasoning.

[masonco]

They should not have listened to Pelosi when she said "You have to pass this healthcare bill to see what is in it".. I have to laugh that the unions and others who believed the claims those claims...Now they are finding out what really was in that bill including the pork.

[easymoney]

In a survey by a top research firm, six in 10 physicians said it is likely many doctors will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years.

The same percentage say the practice of medicine is in jeopardy as medical experts lose control of their clinics and compensation with the implementation of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or Obamacare.

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A spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient, was not surprised.

She told WND that doctors already have started leaving the profession through early retirement. Among those who remain, some will seek alternatives to what they see coming in the federal government’s takeover of health care.

“I think it’s a disaster for patients,” she said. “They may lose the doctor they relied on all their lives.”

The survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found that the “future of the medical profession may be in jeopardy as it loses clinical autonomy and compensation.”

Further, it found the health insurance exchanges required by Obamacare this year probably won’t be reality. Many doctors are starting to limit their participation in Medicaid and Medicare because of low reimbursement rates.

Some doctors even close off their practices to such patients, the survey found.

The study said: “Physicians recognize ‘the new normal’ will necessitate major changes in the profession that require them to practice in different settings as part of a larger organization that uses technologies and team-based models for consumer care.”

Orient affirmed that many doctors are unable to continue a private practice and will end up working for a corporation hospital where the profits are distributed to shareholders.

She warned that such scenarios often end up giving the feeling of an assembly line, where a patient sees a doctor briefly, is given a diagnosis and shown the door.

Doctors in that system, she said, will be punished if they spend too much time on a patient, or possibly if they provide too much treatment.

She said the frustration that comes from such scenarios actually is creating the incentive for a countertrend in which doctors cut ties to the behemoth insurance companies and simply charge a fee to patients.

The survey found physicians are pessimistic about the future of medicine.

“The majority worry about the profession’s erosion of clinical autonomy and income, and its inability to achieve medical liability reform.”

While many doctors are satisfied with practicing medicine, most gain that from their interaction with patients. But nearly one in four said that even now they are not allowed to spend enough time with each patient. And one in five was distressed by the developing government regulations.

The survey said the perception that there will be a drain opened among the pool of physicians over the coming requirements and regulations is uniform among all doctors.

The report said: “Nearly three-quarters of physicians (higher among surgical specialists at 81 percent) think the best and brightest may not consider a career in medicine (slight increase from those who felt similarly in 2011 at 69 percent), while more than half believe that physicians will retire (62 percent) or scale back practice hours (55 percent) based on how the future of medicine is changing.

“Eight in 10 physicians agree that the face of the future in medicine over the next decade involves interdisciplinary teams and care coordinators,” the report continued.

And while the report said four in 10 physicians had reductions in their take-home pay from 2011 to 2012, “among those physicians whose take home pay decreased by any amount in 2012, four in 10 believe that it was a result of the ACA.”

Fully half expect their incomes to “fall dramatically in the next one to three years.”

Overall, they are critical of the U.S. health care system, blaming problems on a defensive mode that influences treatment and results, the survey said.

Among other results: Only two in 10 doctors believe the government exchanges will be ready to go, 25 percent say they’ll limit their work on Medicare patients if the government funding program continues at it is and most believe unhealthy lifestyles influence the health care system costs.

Orient told WND the problems all generally relate to more government demands and intervention.

“It amounts to busy work,” she said.

A blogger who commented on the study, the Lonely Conservative, said: “Any time you hear talk of a ‘new normal’ you know what they really mean is ‘ongoing misery,’ and it’s always thanks to progressive policies. Heck, government officials aren’t even sounding all that confident that our health care system won’t become like the third world.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/obamacare-has-doctors-planning-exit/#rut...

[Willy]

All of the doctors I have talked to would agree with your article easy.

[easymoney]

Mine said he would have to join a group and give up his private practice. And, he's very liberal

We've had some interesting discussions, many on fire arms. Although, with all that's going on, he's considering a gun for home protection. That's only taken a couple of years to get his eyes open .Hasn't done it yet, but at least he's considering it.