Originally published January 9 2014
Workers, union employees, totally 'pissed off' about Obamacare betrayal
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Union leaders and members have long been Democratic Party constituents, so it was no surprise that, when President Obama and congressional Democrats were pushing the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, the country's largest unions backed the measure as well.
During its passage, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka praised then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and others for driving Obamacare "down the Republican's throat" (see that little gem here).
Because of the intentional misrepresentation of the law by partisan hacks like Trumka - who likes to portray himself as just an ordinary, blue collar guy, but who gladly takes a six-figure salary from dues-paying members of the AFL-CIO - most union workers also backed the Affordable Care Act.
'I feel like I've been taken to the cleaners'
And now that the law's provisions are coming back to bite them and their families, they are, in the words of some, "pissed off" about it.
As reported by Breitbart News:
Most of the 41 workers at Extreme Dodge in Jackson, Michigan say Obamacare is exploding their premiums and destroying health care as they once knew it.
"I feel like I've been taken to the cleaners," salesman Neal Campbell told NBC News senior investigative reporter Lisa Myers in a recent report.
Campbell, who has a wife and three children, also said that Obamacare is breeding resentment and anger among the populace.
"We feel betrayed, lied to, and we're pissed off," Campbell said.
"How is this helping the average American that's working 40 to 50 hours per week?" asked salesperson Terry Hardcastle. "How are we supposed to live?"
And Cathy Smith agreed. "You don't make that much money to begin with," said Smith with tears in her eyes. "[T]he prescriptions are going to kill me."
'The overwhelming majority will pay more'
Because of Obamacare, the workers' employer faced a 50 percent increase in health insurance costs to keep worker plans at current benefit and deductible levels. In order for that to be economically feasible, the dealership decided instead to give each worker an additional $2,400 a year to let them find their own private plans.
That's all part of the new Obamacare reality for America's small businesses and their employees, according to small business insurance broker Michael Harp.
"The overwhelming majority, they're paying much higher rates and they have lower benefits."
Steve Williams, a service adviser, said the Obamacare law has destroyed affordable health care.
"The days of low deductibles and all that stuff are gone," he observed in comments to NBC News. "It's not going to get any better. It's just going to get worse."
NBC's report comes at a time when the Obama administration and its liberal/progressive allies are making ready yet one more public relations campaign to resell the ACA, in the hopes of boosting the law's popularity. Naturally, the campaign won't focus on the millions of people like the auto center employees but rather only on Americans who have managed to get taxpayer-subsidized and funded health coverage.
"The strategy, however, risks further angering the millions of middle-class workers who lost their insurance coverage due to Obamacare or whose premiums and deductibles are soaring in order to pay for the very Obamacare 'winners' the administration plans to highlight," Breitbart News reported. "According to the latest CNN poll, Obamacare is at a record low 35% approval rating."
Unions catch a break, thanks to Obama
Last May, The Hill reported that a number of unions were bailing on support for Obamacare because they, too, were realizing that the law's minimum coverage requirements would result in members' losing their coverage or seeing coverage costs (and deductibles) dramatically rise.
Only, thanks to Obama's incessant changing of the law to fit his and Democrats' political needs, unions were thrown a lifeline by the president in November, when the White House proposed, and the Department of Health and Human Services adopted, a rule change that exempts "self-administered, self-insured group health plans" from the law's reinsurance fee.
"The phrase 'self-administered, self-insured group health plans' would include multi-employer plans. These are also known as 'Taft-Hartley plans' and are widely provided by organized labor groups to their members," the Washington Examiner reported.
Sources:
http://www.breitbart.com
http://youtube.com
http://investigations.nbcnews.com
http://washingtonexaminer.com
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