Obama is Losing Unions on Obamacare

President Obama has not been having a very good month. Between the Benghazi hearings, the IRS scandal, the DOJ getting caught snooping into media phone records, and the NLRB smackdown, he really needs his friends. Usually, when Obama needs friends, he would turn to the unions. Too bad they’re not very happy with him lately, either. 

At long last, union leaders are starting to see what many Americans saw all along- that Obamacare doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and doesn’t provide affordable care.

“It makes an untruth out of what the president said, that if you like your insurance, you could keep it… said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “That is not going to be true for millions of workers now.”

What these union leaders didn’t realize was that their coverage would become so expensive under the Affordable Care Act that members would have no choice but to drop the coverage, leaving the remaining members to pay even more. 

In essence, all but the wealthiest members would be forced onto health care exchanges. “We’re concerned that employers will be increasingly tempted to drop coverage through our plans and let our members fend for themselves on the health exchanges,” said David Treanor, director of health care initiatives at the Operating Engineers union.

It could be that unions are simply realizing that they have played a part in their own downfall, having supported Obama so enthusiastically in both 2008 and 2012. With union membership down and right-to-work taking off across America, they need all of the benefits they can get to offer prospective members. However, if workers can get the same benefits through Obamacare with less expense, that could cause them to lose members. 

Whatever the reason, at least one union is already calling for the act to be repealed.

“In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it,”

Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, said last month. “I am therefore calling for repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act.”

The unions are finally waking up to the truth and the economic realities of the ironically named “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” – but is it too little, too late? 

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