What a bunch of hypocrites! HYPOCRITES!
From John Fund, the Wall Street Journal:
In a desperate scramble to pay for the soaring costs of President Obama's health care plan, the Senate Finance Committee is contemplating taxing for the first time the health insurance benefits workers get from their employers. One approach would tax the benefits only of workers earning over $100,000. An alternate proposal would tax the value of health care benefits that exceed a cap.
But the taxes wouldn't be applied equally. Union members serving under collective bargaining agreements would be exempt, even though they often have the richest and most extensive packages of benefits. Union officials have told Democratic leaders of Congress that because collective bargaining agreements can last several years, they should be exempt from any tax because contracts can't be changed quickly enough to avoid it.
The real reason, of course, is that unions have political clout and are exercising it. The exemption is "a means of making sure that unions are foursquare behind any reform bill that comes out," Henry Aaron, a Brookings Institution scholar, told the Washington Examiner.
There's a reason the Obama health care plan is being rushed through Congress this summer -- because the American people would likely never support it if given time to absorb and understand such fine print. If the union carve-out isn't sufficient to excite public anger, wait till you hear about the version of the Obama plan prepared by Senator Edward Kennedy, which would specifically exempt Members of Congress from many of its provisions.
As the U.S. Office of Personnel Management notes, Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country." According to page 114 of the Kennedy bill, a similar array of choices would not be available to other Americans in the future. Instead, they would be shunted into health insurance plans under the straightjacket of whatever the government decides is a "basic" plan.
The goal would be to restrict care for the general public in order to control costs, while making sure Congress gets the gold-plated attention it's accustomed to. Ultimately, the rest of us would be asked to trade a private insurance company as gatekeeper for a government gatekeeper. The difference, of course, is that most of us can fire our insurance gatekeeper. Just try to do that once the government fills that role.
NO to ObamaCare.
Hands off my health!
1 comment:
A government's FIRST AND FOREMOST JOB is to ensure the health of its citizens. In the US the government puts an enormous amount of resources into a strong, efficient military, and it does an excellent job. The US military, a government-run system, operates nearly up to the ideal for such a body. So why can't government understand that PART of that FIRST JOB is to take care of the HEALTH of its citizens?
Congress accepts a government-controlled healthcare system for themselves while actively fighting one for the rest of the people. A government's JOB is to ensure the health of its citizens and it should put an equal amount of money into that as they do the military. Health as a commodity for the rich shoud be illegal. It's already IMMORAL.
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