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Goodies for labor tucked away in health bill

Houston Chronicle
chron.com

Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed its version of a health care reform bill, all eyes turn to the Senate. No matter where you stand in the debate over issues such as the public option, big labor bosses hope you do not notice some lower-profile provisions tucked into the pages of this massive proposal. If they become law, these provisions would give union leaders considerable influence over health care decisions affecting us all.

It was no surprise that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Andy Stern, president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), cheered the results of the House vote. After spending almost $80 million during the last election cycle, unions are on the brink of reaping a significant return on their investment. Despite representing only about 7.6% of private sector employees, unions are poised to gain significant privileges, authority and financial windfalls from health care reform. Coming at the expense of tax-paying patients and businesses, these specific benefits would do little or nothing to improve our health care system.

The unions’ path to this point has been interesting. When the public recognized that the Employee Free Choice Act (the card check bill) was not a good idea, labor leaders turned to some old-fashioned misdirection tactics. While higher-profile aspects of health care reform drew attention, pro-union legislators slipped a variety of big benefits for labor into the proposed legislation. Quietly tucked among the proposals’ thousands of pages, these provisions have avoided much scrutiny.

One provision epitomizes the nature of this ploy. According to research firms, unions are woefully short of funds to pay their retirees’ anticipated insurance claims. Thus, under the House resolution, union leaders who have mismanaged these plans for their members could receive up to $10 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout money, innocuously referred to as a “reinsurance program.”

Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Under the proposed public option, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius would wield tremendous discretionary authority to regulate participating health care workers. She and various federal panels, where the unions would have guaranteed seats, would take the lead in recommending health care policy. Thus, labor would have considerable influence over decisions affecting most doctors, nurses and patients.

The House resolution establishes a scenario that would effectively exclude non-union employers from eligibility to work on program-funded contracts. It also requires participating health care providers to pay wages and benefits that have been collectively bargained or that union-friendly appointees determine are competitive. This is plainly a move toward coerced unionization. With guaranteed seats at the table, unions are poised to control many newly formed oversight posts and/or committees, formed in connection with new employer mandates and cooperative health care associations.

Yet another provision would establish lucrative state training partnerships that contain little or no opportunities for non-union employee organizations. Provisions in Senate proposals would exempt union-negotiated health care plans from taxes on “Cadillac” health plans.

These features all encourage more unionization. The unions know that under Canada’s nationalized system, union membership among all health care workers is 61 percent, compared to just 11 percent in the U.S.

Increasing membership similarly in this country would swell labor’s coffers with as much as another $2 billion in dues.

In fact, Senate proposals include language that could force home health workers into unions. Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former California Gov. Gray Davis used this approach to repay political debts to the SEIU in their states. They reclassified state-reimbursed home health contractors as state employees, thus forcing them to pay union dues. Again and again, it is apparent that these union-friendly proposals have nothing do with improving our health care system.

If our elected representatives are serious about health care reform, they should address the pertinent issues, without slipping in hidden favors for their political supporters. Big labor’s self-serving, sleight-of-hand tactics have no place in this vital debate.

Troutman is the chairman of the Healthcare Practice Group of Fisher & Phillips LLP, a national law firm that devotes its practice exclusively to representing management in labor and employment matters. Troutman is a partner in the firm’s Houston office.
 

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