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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=lvpsf@igc.org href="mailto:lvpsf@igc.org">Steve Zeltzer</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=Undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:Undisclosed-recipients:">Undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 20, 2010 3:36 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Workers Fed Up With Obama-Demo Healthcare Reform “It’s
worse than NAFTA.”</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Workers Fed Up With Obama-Demo Healthcare Reform
“It’s worse than NAFTA.”</DIV><A
href="http://www.labornotes.org/2010/01/anger-over-health-care-bill-creates-uncertain-future">http://www.labornotes.org/2010/01/anger-over-health-care-bill-creates-uncertain-future</A>
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over Health Care Bill Creates Uncertain Future</H2>
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20, 2010</DIV><SPAN class=clear
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care reform is surrounded by tea party protesters. Photo by Jim
West.</SPAN></DIV></DIV>
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<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">A
Massachusetts local union president called it before the January 19 vote for
senator: “I’ve never seen this much anger at the Democrats from union people,”
said Jeff Crosby, president of a General Electric factory local near Boston, as
he prepared a last-minute leaflet to hand out in the plant. “It’s worse than
NAFTA.”</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Top union
leaders had bargained a <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/01/14/health-care-tax-union-leaders-outline-big-improvements-for-all-working-families">compromise</A> slowing
down the health care benefits tax President Obama insisted on, but it was not
enough to placate union members—and others—infuriated that Obama had broken his
campaign promise not to tax benefits.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Crosby
said his members were threatening to vote Republican to stop the tax, since 60
Democratic senators and no Republicans had voted for it. In Massachusetts’
special election they chose empty-suit Republican Scott Brown over a Democrat
bound to cement the benefits tax in place.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">In a
Suffolk University poll conducted a week before the election, union-household
voters in Massachusetts reported only 45 percent support for the Democratic
candidate; union voters nationally backed Obama by 60 percent in 2008.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">According
to those on a January 14 conference call with AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka,
Massachusetts state fed President Bobby Haynes exploded in anger, blaming top
union leaders for a terrible health care bill and for losing the Massachusetts
election—and thus the Dems’ 60th Senate seat, needed to ensure the health care
bill’s passage (and the rest of labor’s agenda, labor law and immigration
reform).</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Obama
took a hands-off approach to the content of the bill as it crept through
Congress. He didn’t insist on a public option nor a strong employer mandate to
provide insurance. It was hard not to notice that the only issue on which he
took a hard stand was taxing benefits.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">At his
meeting with a dozen labor leaders at the White House January 11, Obama was firm
that a tax on benefits was a must-have—despite his campaign promise to the
contrary. “We have a lot of video clips,” said Machinists President Thomas
Buffenbarger.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Although
the benefits tax was not the only issue on Massachusetts voters’ minds (the
faltering economy was the No. 1 concern in the Suffolk poll), it was one of the
clearest examples of the Obama administration’s tilt away from working class
voters, beginning with the bank bailout.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Trumka
too had predicted that the health care mess would backfire on Democrats. In a
January 11 <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/prsptm/sp01112010.cfm">speech</A> at
the National Press Club, he said, “In 1992, workers voted for Democrats who
promised action on jobs, who talked about reining in corporate greed, and who
promised health care reform. Instead, we got NAFTA, an emboldened Wall
Street—and not much more. [In 1994] there was no way to persuade enough working
Americans to go to the polls when they couldn't tell the difference between the
two parties.”</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">NAFTA,
which dealt a heavy blow to U.S. manufacturing, was voted up by Congress in 1993
after intense cajoling by President Clinton, garnering the votes of 102 House
Democrats. Clinton lost the Democratic majority in Congress the next year—and
never got it back.</P>
<H3
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 1.22em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0.5em 0px; COLOR: rgb(34,34,34); PADDING-TOP: 0px">LET’S
MAKE A DEAL</H3>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">As the
likely House-Senate compromise took shape in early January, it appeared certain
that if the bill passed, people with good (or just expensive) benefits would
face a steep 40 percent tax likely to push them into inferior plans.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">So labor
leaders reached a <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/01/victory-or-pretzel">deal</A> with
White House negotiators January 14 that accepted the tax they’d previously
declared unacceptable. The deal announced by Trumka and his counterparts at
Change to Win and the National Education Association would have exempted those
in union-negotiated plans and state and local employees from the tax until
2018.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">It also
would have raised the threshold at which the tax kicked in for many other plans:
those containing significant numbers of women, older workers, or retirees age 55
and up, or those in high-cost states, the latter affecting more than 38 million
workers. Those provisions would have delayed those groups’ hit as well.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Trumka’s
goal was to exempt as many people as possible, union and non-union, from ever
paying the tax, though only the velocity of health care cost inflation would
have proved how successful he was.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">“Most of
the 31 million insured employees who would be hit by the excise tax are not
union members,” Trumka noted before the deal was struck. But in the end unions
bought extra time for their members at the cost of making themselves look
self-interested. The deal will create awkward moments for union health care
activists who’ve spent years trying to build broad coalitions.</P>
<H3
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 1.22em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0.5em 0px; COLOR: rgb(34,34,34); PADDING-TOP: 0px">STILL
OPPOSED</H3>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Not all
top union leaders backed the compromise plan. Buffenbarger told Labor Notes his
members at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics were already over the
$23,000 threshold at which the tax would originally kick in.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">“No bill
is better than this bill,” Buffenbarger said. “We don't care what the amount is
that they peg it to: because of inflation, whatever number will be gobbled up
pretty quickly.”</P>
<P
style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Firefighters
President Harold Schaitberger said his union didn’t ask for the bill’s special,
higher threshold for first responders, $26,000 rather than $23,000. The
provision was worthless, he said, because most of his members are pooled in
larger municipal plans, with no mechanism to segregate them out. “We’re not
going to buy into a special deal for us,” Schaitberger said.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">The
Steelworkers’ Leo Gerard backed the compromise, telling Labor Notes he was
thinking about Senator Jim DeMint, “that right-wing nut from one of the
Carolinas,” who’s said he wants to make health care Obama’s Waterloo.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">“We have
to do everything to make sure we get a good bill so we can move forward with the
rest of the president’s agenda as quickly as possible,” Gerard said.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Insiders
say Trumka sold his compromise by arguing that health care reform had to get
done so Congress could tackle long-delayed labor law reform—the Employee Free
Choice Act.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Labor’s
weakness throughout the health care reform process put a question mark over EFCA
anyway, and even the question mark lay in tatters after the Massachusetts
election.</P>
<P
style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Buffenbarger—who
backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries—was a pessimist in any case. “We’re not
going to get EFCA anyway,” he said. “It’s an election year. No way they’re going
to touch it.”</P>
<H3
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 1.22em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0.5em 0px; COLOR: rgb(34,34,34); PADDING-TOP: 0px">TURN
TO THE STATES</H3>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">One
bright spot could emerge from this winter’s health care debacle: union members
not pushed into the arms of the tea-partiers could become convinced that
“Medicare for All” is the only solution.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">“It may
mean more people are apt to be engaged on single payer because they’re getting
hit themselves,” said Lenny Potash, a retired AFSCME member and co-chair of
the <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://laborforsinglepayer.com/">Labor Taskforce for Universal
Healthcare</A> in Los Angeles.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Activists
in California and Vermont have already begun serious work on state single-payer
efforts.</P>
<P
style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">The <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://www.workerscenter.org/">Vermont Workers Center</A> turned out
350 people to legislative hearings January 12 to testify for the state’s
single-payer bill. Senator Bernie Sanders was followed by union nurses.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">The
center, the state’s Jobs with Justice affiliate, began organizing in earnest
last year: a rally of 1,000 at the State Capitol on a work day; organized
committees in every county; a dozen regional hearings. The result, says co-chair
Traven Leyshon, is that “we have changed what’s politically possible. As
recently as September the legislature said they couldn't be bothered with single
payer.”</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">All
Democratic candidates for governor next fall say they support single payer
(though Leyshon recalls former Governor Howard Dean, who “was always for single
payer till the day he became governor”). The Democrats and the Progressive Party
together have a veto-proof two-thirds majority in both houses.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">A new
single-payer bill, just introduced by a Progressive legislator, includes a just
transition for insurance company workers and others who would lose their jobs
under a single-payer system. The legislation was written so as to survive legal
challenges.</P>
<H3
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 1.22em; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0.5em 0px; COLOR: rgb(34,34,34); PADDING-TOP: 0px">SINGLE
PAYER IN ONE STATE</H3>
<P
style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">California
activists will back a single-payer bill starting this month, though Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s in his last year, is certain to veto it for the
third time (similar bills passed in 2006 and 2008). The campaign kicked off
January 11 with 1,000 members of the California Health Professional Student
Alliance and others rallying in Sacramento.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Michael
Lighty of the <A
style="COLOR: rgb(0,51,102); BORDER-BOTTOM: rgb(0,0,0) 1px dotted; TEXT-DECORATION: none"
href="http://www.calnurses.org/">California Nurses
Association</A> explained that winning single payer is a multi-year
project: heavy education this year, electing a Democratic governor who won’t
veto single payer this fall, passing a new bill, taking the measure to the
voters in a referendum. The media campaign alone could cost as much as $20
million.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">What
about the cost, in a state that’s broke? Cate Engel of the Labor Taskforce for
Universal Healthcare said the bill ultimately would save California billions of
dollars, by reducing administrative costs and using the state’s mammoth
purchasing power to force drug and equipment prices down.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">What
about California unions that haven’t backed single payer—or ditched the idea
before the fight even began, citing “political viability”? Well, said Lighty,
“we saw what happened on the national level when they went for public option
over single payer because of viability.”</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">Bill
Bryce is the Jobs with Justice organizer in Detroit. He’s shaking his head over
the lost opportunities of 2009—the year when Obama rode in on a wave of hope for
change and corporations were in disgrace because of the financial fiasco.</P>
<P style="FONT-SIZE: 1.2em; MARGIN: 0px 0px 1.5em; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5em">“You’re
the president, you appear on TV and say, ‘I have a suggestion, let’s tax Wall
Street bonuses at 50 percent and defray the cost of health care,'” Bryce said.
“If this was not the time to take on the insurance companies and the banks, just
when will that time come?”</P></DIV></DIV></SPAN></DIV><br />--
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