Rahm: Passing Health Care Will Be Just Like Passing NAFTA

[Omaha Steve]

http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2009/12/26/rahm-passing-health-care-will-be-just-like-passing-nafta/

By: Michael Whitney Saturday December 26, 2009 1:55 pm

Rahm's noseIn case you had any doubts the passage of the health care bill will be just as disastrous for Democrats and the labor movement as the rout of 1994, Rahm Emanuel is here to reassure you. It will be just like NAFTA! And Rahm thinks that’s a good thing.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls.



Gulp.

If the unions aren’t listening, they better now. Rahm has been pushing through this health care bill for Obama and has had unions at his side, or at least neutralized. SEIU has been with the White House from the beginning on health care, and continues to support the legislation. And while the AFL-CIO has continually critiqued the bill and held its demand for a public option, the federation hasn’t opposed the bill or the White House.

The Senate bill will be, for all intents and purposes, the final health care bill. That means a Chevy tax on middle class health insurance, no public option, no employer mandate. This bill is so disastrous for unions that Jon Walker has warned “every private sector union will be dead in nine years,” once the Chevy tax kicks in to full gear. (First to go? AFL-CIO unions like CWA, which have given up wage increases for benefits for years. Last to go? Low wage workers like those represented by SEIU.)

While unions have been with the Democratic Party in calling for universal health care and reform for decades, they must recognize that where we are now is not acceptable. Indeed, by supporting this bill, unions are digging their own graves. So why aren’t they fighting? Unions feel they need to stay on the good side of Rahm and the White House in order to hang on to the last strands of labor law reform, which they hope and pray will come up (and pass) in the new year.

So we have a labor movement stuck in mud, knowing that reform as it exists is far from what the country needs, and even self destructive. Yet they’re fearful of opposing this terrible idea of reform in order to hold on to promises of future reforms to save themselves.

FULL story at link.

[blueworld]

1. What a wise man - is that a gesture that many wizards use?

NAFTA did indeed lift Clinton in the polls temporarily. And since it too was another poorly crafted, poorly researched bill specifically to help "business" make everyone's life better, the fruits it produced for this country and Mexico (and Clinton) were so poisonous so quickly the Dems were routed, never mind simply defeated.

I wonder if we'll ever again realize that what's good for business isn't at ALL good for all people & the common welfare. It's simply good for business & their bottom line.

It's true we all share in that pie, but business needs workers & consumers as much as the reverse. So legislation should be crafted for BOTH sides - balance. My fingers are so sore from typing this stuff for so many years.

[Lindsay]

2. Exactly what I've been dreading.

Thanks, Rahm.

[jgraz]

3. And 2010 will be just like 1994.

:banghead:

[rudy23]

8. They want it to be. I'll be working to elect Dems in '10 out of spite.

If they have gridlock, they don't have to go through all this kabuki to pass right wing legislation.

[w4rma]

4. Okay. I had been leaning towards maybe passing it, but now I *know* this bill, written as is, needs

to die. NAFTA **routed** the Democrats for over a decade. We're truly screwed with this scumbag in charge.

[peacetalksforall]

5. Every time I hear his name I feel utter fear. What arrogance - stop the

slide. They are counting on all the people who DO NOT WANT TO know what's going on and don't want you to tell them. They are not counting on me - if the insurance companies get richer and treat the insured and uninsured as they have been doing.

[subterranean]

6. I'm wondering which would be worse for the Dems in 2010...

passing the Senate version of the bill -- which hardly anyone likes except the insurance and pharmaceutical industries -- or passing no bill at all? Either way, it won't be pretty.

[eridani]

7. If nothing passes, we can blame the Repubs

--while at the same time pulling out the useful parts of the bill and daring the Repubs to vote against them.

[Craftsman]

9. And Nafta worked out so well for the middle class and working class

Not