The powerful union conglomerate AFL-CIO will fully support the health care bill and campaign for its passage despite a last-minute setback over a change to a provision that would tax high-cost insurance plans.
The group's Executive Council met on Thursday to discuss new legislative language that will index the excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" plans to the Consumer Price Index (the rate of inflation) rather than the Consumer Price Index plus one percent. The change, which is in the final bill, will affect more union insurance policies at a quicker rate over time. And in a last-minute meeting at the White House, the union's president, Richard Trumka fought the new language.
He lost that battle. But in the process was able to secure provisions that were enough to temper the discouragement he and his union colleagues felt. Under the final bill, all insurance plans (not just those that were structured from collective bargaining) will be exempted from the excise tax until 2018.
This was not in the original deal. But labor officials view it as a major victory. In mid-February an analysis by Ken Jacobs of the University of California showed that at least 80 percent of the workers whose plans would be taxed under the Senate's legislation were in non-union jobs.
"We literally helped every worker in the country," said a union source.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/afl-cio-will-support-heal_n_504424.html
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