As if Americans didn't have enough reasons already to oppose - or at least be suspicious of - the efforts of the far-left on the issue of healthcare, the hits just keep on coming.
The latest comes from an analysis of the pending Democrat plans by Mark Mix [2] of the Wall Street Journal.
It turns out, the one thousand-plus pages have been hiding early Christmas presents to the Democrat's buddies in the unions, ranging from bailouts of their own health care plans to the forced unionization of American health care workers.
From the article:
The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees-and forcing them to pay union dues.
Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.
The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.
Again, Christmas will come early to the unions this year if this plan becomes law.
Believe it or not, it gets better. It's not enough to put language in the plan that would use force to swell the ranks of dues-paying union members. No.
The House version gives them ten billion dollars to bail out the union health care plans.
And just to make sure all of the bases are covered, the proposed Senate version, which would seek to partially offset the costs of health care by taxing existing health care plans, would exempt union plans from being taxed. To make it even better, this bill would give employers an "out" on expensive health care, by giving in to allowing a union to come in, organize, and negotiate a cheaper healthcare plan...which would be exempted from the tax. (ie, "we'll save you money by getting the government off your back if you'll let us unionizethe place")
It's nice to have Democrat friends in high places.
He closes his article saying:
Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.
This just brings to mind Obama's accidental moment of honesty in this debate, when he essentially compared a new government run health care system to the post office.
And we all know how efficient and consumer orriented the post office is, don't we?
Follow @DrewMcKissick [3]