Group of people in favor of law wondering why they are being subjected to that law.

In an all too familiar refrain, another set of people have come forward to seek relief from the federal health care law they formerly championed: Big Labor.


From Breitbart.com:

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the dissolution of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO's support of Obamare.

"We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along," McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.

The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their "Cadillac" healthcare plan.

The Longshoreman leader said, "President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans and at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, you stated that labor would not stand for a tax on our benefits." But, regardless of that promise, the President has pushed for just such a tax and Trumka and the AFL-CIO bowed to political pressure lining up behind Obama's tax on those plans.

That sound you are hearing right now is us playing "Our heart bleeds for you" on the world's smallest violin.


When did McEllrath get the memo on the tax on his union's "Cadillac" health plan? It's not like it was snuck in there at the last moment. It's been a prominent feature of the legislation since they started negotiating bribing their way to get it passed and now it's become an issue? (We've been blogging about that aspect of the law for years)


We can only surmise, then, that McEllrath just assumed that because the "Cadillac" tax was the law he was going to be exempted from the law in a similar manner as Congress has been exempted from the law or at least get a one-year delay of the tax similar to how Big Business received a one-year delay on the employer mandate.

Well, no such luck, Mac and now watch him take his ball and go home.



For his part, Trumka concedes that mistakes were made in the crafting of the 2,200 page monstrosity.


From Townhall.com

“It still needs to be tweaked,” said Trumka, who pointed to the possibility that union members will lose their health insurance because of the inability of some union plans to qualify for federal tax subsidies.

“ObamaCare is a major step in the right direction but yeah, I said, we made some mistakes,” Trumka told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

“We have been working with the administration to find solutions to the inadvertent holes in the act,” Trumka said. “We are working to try solve problems, just like they tried to solve problems with employers, with large business and small business groups.”

(italics, ours)


This is more from that non-existent clause in the Constitution "consults with businesses" where the President arbitrarily decides which parts of the law apply to whom and Big Labor is freaked out they may not qualify as Preezy's BFF any longer and may be forced to deal with the wretchedness of a law they got behind with full force.


Everything from the economy, energy policy and now his signature piece of legislation has been reduced to picking winners and loser by this administration.


Running a constitutional republic in a random, un-transparent and cronyistic manner is no way to go through life, son.