Union Big: Labor Won’t Support House Passing Senate Bill

[Joanne98]

House to pass Senate health bill as is? Forget it, a top labor leader says.

AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel tells me in an interview that labor won’t support any efforts by the House to pass the Senate health bill in its current form — creating major complications for one of the key solutions Dems are contemplating in the wake of their huge loss last night.

“We don’t want the House to pass the Senate bill,” Samuel said a few moments ago by phone. “We would not be in favor of passing the Senate bill without fixing the problems that we’ve identified.”

Labor’s opposition to this solution is not wholly surprising, because labor is adamantly opposed to a number of provisions in the Senate bill, such as the “Cadillac” tax and state-by-state, rather than national, exchanges. But Samuel’s declaration is noteworthy, because it renders the odds that House leaders will pursue this route remote indeed — forcing them to search for other solutions.

Samuel said that right now, labor viewed only one route forward as acceptable: Creating a bill in the Senate that would address labor’s concerns and passing it through reconciliation, while simultaneously passing the measure through the House.

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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/labor/union-big-labor-wont-support-house-passing-senate-bill/

[karynnj]

1. this actually makes sense

"Samuel said that right now, labor viewed only one route forward as acceptable: Creating a bill in the Senate that would address labor’s concerns and passing it through reconciliation, while simultaneously passing the measure through the House."

This would insure what changes are there while the House votes.

[leveymg]

2. Finally, the log-jam is breaking up.

Next, let's take away management of the Bill from the twits who got us into this mess.