>Labor angry over Obama-backed insurance tax
Jan 12, 6:54 AM (ET)
By ERICA WERNER
https://apnews.myway.com/article/20100112/D9D6661G1.html
WASHINGTON (AP) – Labor leaders are pushing hard on President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to drop a proposed new tax on high-value health insurance plans, warning of political consequences.
The White House has indicated the tax may change so it hits fewer workers – but it’s not going away.
A Monday evening meeting at the White House between Obama and about a dozen heads of the country’s biggest labor unions capped a day when two union leaders fired broadsides at Obama and Senate Democrats over their plans to pay for overhauling the nation’s health care system with a tax union leaders fear could hurt their workers.
The 40 percent tax would fall on employer health plans worth more than $8,500 for an individual or $23,000 for a family. Although Obama terms them “Cadillac” plans, union leaders say numerous working-class Americans who’ve negotiated good benefits in exchange for lesser pay would be hurt.
The president of the AFL-CIO, Richard 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, who was not among the attendees at the White House meeting.
https://apnews.myway.com/article/20100112/D9D6661G1.html
