Since President Obama’s reelection last November, the disgruntlement from unions’ with their lot in the health care law (for which they originally and relentlessly lobbied) slowly snowballed into barely-contained outrage at the ways in which the law messes with certain multi-employer insurance plans and incentivizes employers to turn to more part-time work options. After summoning what political clout they could muster, the White House finally decided earlier this month to reject Big Labor’s plea for a special allowance in the form of individual subsidy eligibility (on top of the favorable tax treatment they already receive, ahem).
In solidarity with Big Labor, I’m sure, MSNBC host Ed Schultz professed his dismay over the administration’s decision on his radio show this week, wondering why on earth — in not so many words, mind you — the Obama administration can’t just unilaterally hand down a giant waiver or set up a special system or some kind of ObamaCare-exemption to alleviate the pickle in which they’ve found themselves. It would be so simple, right? Via Newsbusters:
SCHULTZ: Now this is the union thing. Listen to this —
BARRASSO: Also apologize to the union members who believed the president when he said if you like what you have you can keep it and your insurance rates will come down.
SCHULTZ (parroting Barrasso): Believed the president that you can keep it. You can keep it. And eventually their rates will come down. See, this is dealing with an agree-, the unions are a little, uh, toasty under the collar about Obamacare, not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But they believe that what they negotiated for should not be affected at all, and I go along with that! That’s the private sector at work. That’s freedom. And I think that there’s an easy solution to this as I see it. All the administration has to do is say, OK, if you’re in organized labor in this country, you’ve got your own exchange. Go do your deal. I mean, that’s the best way to do it. It’s the absolute best way to do it. And right now the benefit, the negotiated benefit in many contracts for union workers in this country is so good, it puts them into an area where they may end up paying a little bit of tax on it. Well, that’s not good! But that’s fixable. That is very fixable.
As Ed Schultz spends half his days reminding us, ObamaCare is the most fantastic legislation of which a president has ever conceived and will inevitably result in high-quality and practically free health care for all; how it is the administration could have managed to make such an egregious, unfortunate error really is a mystery.
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