Bluebear (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:21 PM
Original message
AFL-CIO: "Cadillac tax" on health care (which Obama says is a "good idea") will ERODE COVERAGE
A new year brings with it lots of hope.
Let’s hope 2010 brings a health care reform bill that does not penalize working families with a tax on their coverage. Because right now, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert aptly describes it, there is a â€middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version†of the health care reform legislation.
The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.
More cost, less coverage for working families. Yet portraying the tax as only affecting â€Cadillac plans,†purposely obscures how it will harm America’s working families...
Or, as Herbert puts it:
The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich….
http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/01/04/tax-on-health-care-wi... /
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7402586laughingliberal (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
1. Herbert knows it, I know it, you know it, and Obama knows it
It's a corporate hit job on the middle class and bypasses the need to raise taxes on the wealthy.
dkf (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
2. Its meant to make health insurance companies cut what is covered
and charge higher copays, deductibles, etc.
So everyone can be "equal".
yodoobo (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. What is wrong with being equal?
Why should a civil right be conferred on some, more than others?
Find where health care is listed as a right in the Constitution.
dkf (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:45 PM
Response to Reply #6
13. It becomes equal by cutting good coverage.
What do they call it? Downward equalization?
That is a basic tenet of liberalism. Put more succinctly, it's wealth redistribution, which all DUmmies favor when it isn't their wealth being redistributed.
dflprincess (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 10:52 PM
Response to Reply #6
17. The unions have been making wage concessions for years to keep decent health insurance
now they're being told they can either pay taxes on that coverage or take something less - and they're wages won't keep up with the either the taxes or the higher out of pockets.
amborin (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-05-10 11:22 PM
Response to Reply #17
24. when will the Bush tax cuts for wealthy be repealed as promised?
They won't even be a drop in the bucket that is needed to cover this crap. You'll have to pay more IF you work.
yodoobo (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 01:37 AM
Response to Reply #17
40. its great that unions have had coverage for years
truly.
But the goal is to get EVERYONE covered.
Sadly, not everyone belongs to a union. Those who don't deserve healthcare just as much any union member or wealthy person.
Everyone is going to have to make some sacrifices to insure that everyone gets the healthcare we ALL deserve. Did you really think that universal coverage would be free?
Those who benefit the most should be asked to give back the most. That is a sound principal of our party and just because YOU are being asked to pay your fair share, doesn't mean that we throw that principal away.
Yes. DUmmies thought it would be free for them and the "rich" would pay for it.
Hello_Kitty (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 01:46 AM
Response to Reply #40
42. Union busting is NOT a principle of our party. eom
yodoobo (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 01:48 AM
Response to Reply #42
43. oh come on. No one is busting unions here
Hello_Kitty (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 02:04 AM
Response to Reply #43
45. Fomenting resentment of unions is what I'd call union busting.
Accusing unions of gaining an unfair benefit is doing exactly that. They negotiated those benefits in exchange for higher wages.
yodoobo (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 02:42 AM
Response to Reply #45
53. Everyone is entitled to the same healthcare
Edited on Wed Jan-06-10 02:43 AM by yodoobo
Once the field is leveled, unions will no longer be forced to give up wages for healthcare.
They will have the same (high quality) healthcare as everyone else, and can then focus their negotiation efforts on better wages and other benefits.
The quality of ones healthcare should not be based on the quality of your contract negotiator.
In the long term, this is extremely positive for union benefit/wage negotiations.
High Quality? Rationed poor quality is more like it.
Hello_Kitty (1000+ posts) Wed Jan-06-10 03:14 AM
Response to Reply #53
55. Everyone is NOT getting the same health care under the Senate bill.
15 million are getting Medicaid. Better than nothing but hardly anything comparable to what union members negotiated for.
The rest are getting to buy insurance in the exchange. Most of them will get federal subsidies to buy "coverage" that is left up to the regulation vagaries of whatever state they happen to live in. I happen to live in a state, Arizona, that is run by right wing idiots. Do you honestly think that the morons who have driven my state to the bottom in every single measurable indicator will be able to dispense health care in a manner that even approaches what unions did for their people?
Are you stoned?
Most likely the dodo primitive is stoned or high on prescription meds, free ones at that.
Big bonfire with the DUmmies showing a conservative streak by being greedy and not wanting to share with the less fortunate.
