Big Labor's Selfish Healthcare Motivation

With the health care debate raging and, what seems like, new bills being proposed everyday, it is easy to get bogged down in the details and corresponding rumors. One aspect of Democratic healthcare plan that will never change is whatever bill Democrats end up with, they intend to pay for it through taxes on so-called “Cadillac health care plans” (and several other tax increases).

While the “tax anything we can” rhetoric delights most on the Left, it doesn’t play so well with the party’s largest contributor and loyal ally, organized labor.

Unions have spent the past few decades bullying employers into giving them overly generous health care plans (think United Auto Workers) often to the detriment of the companies they work for. Unfortunately for labor, the healthcare plans they spent years negotiating are now considered “Cadillac plans” and are under attack by the same people they helped spent $450 million to put into office.

It is no real surprise that labor is up in arms over Democrats trying to tax their health care. Any powerful interest group would react the same way. Who wants to give money to the government? No one. People just want to give other people’s money away.

The irony is that labor’s rhetoric about the government taxing healthcare goes: “Taxing hard working Americans is unfair. The marginalized worker is being exploited by the man; they shouldn’t be forced to give money to the government in the form of healthcare taxes.” Yes, people shouldn’t be taxed because of the healthcare packages they choose.

But who is labor to talk? The hypocrisy in their argument is laughable. Workers should not have union dues taken from their paychecks before they even receive them, but they do. The right to vote using a secret ballot on unionization should be upheld, yet unions oppose this. Interesting how now unions are opposing the forced surrendering of money when they manifest as healthcare taxes.

Unions have survived, in large part, because they force people to pay union dues, much like a tax. Where do you think that $450 million in campaign contributions came from in ’08? Union dues. In states that do not have right-to-work laws, workers are forced to join a union if they want to work in certain industries. This means that workers have to join a union, whether they want to or not and subsequently are forced into paying union dues.

Labor complains about paying taxes to the government while pocketing union dues, in essence, an employment tax that gives workers the right to keep their job. Taxing hard working Americans is unfair, which is why people should not be forced to join a union.

The marginalized worker is being exploited, by unions, to further labor’s political agenda. Although unions have it right, health care shouldn’t be taxed, it is hard to take them seriously, as they have little credibility in the realm of free choice.