By Kay Tillow
Single Payer News, Sept. 12, 2013
The just-concluded AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles reaffirmed its commitment to a single-payer health care system while demanding that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) be fixed to protect Taft-Hartley (multi-employer) plans, to end the excise tax, to make employers cover workers who average 20 hours a week, to require construction companies with five or more employees to provide health care, to penalize companies who dump their workers onto Medicaid, plus more.
Some of the debate on the resolution can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpVOf9Qsmno
Full text of the resolution can be found here:
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-54-AFL-CIO-Convention-Resolution-on-the-Affordable-Care-Act
Distributed by All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676, c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO), 1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218, Louisville, KY 40217. Phone: (502) 636-1551. E-mail: nursenpo@aol.com. http://unionsforsinglepayer.org
Other media coverage:
AFL-CIO heads off health care fight by criticizing, not dumping, Affordable Care Act
By Mark Gruenberg
Press Associates Union News Service, Sept. 11, 2013
LOS ANGELES – Leaders of the AFL-CIO headed off a knock-down drag-out fight over the Affordable Care Act – the Obama administration’s signature 2010 health care law that organized labor strongly supported – with a compromise resolution that specifies the act’s ills and puts the administration on notice they must be fixed.
But if they aren’t fixed, Laborers President Terry O’Sullivan said, the ACA should be dumped.
The health care fight was the most open controversy at the four-day convention. A compromise headed off another battle, where the building trades unions questioned the role and power of nonunion groups – particularly environmentalists – in labor’s councils. Complaints about lack of protection against inter-union raiding were diverted to the federation’s executive council, with a February 2014 reporting deadline.
But the health care fight couldn’t be headed off.
The resolution and several union leaders said administration’s interpretation of the ACA would virtually trash multi-employer health care plans, which cover 20 million people – workers, retirees and their families – nationwide.
Those plans, prevalent in construction, but present in other industries – such as food processing and seafaring – let joint union-management boards run health care plans that cover workers who frequently shift from job site to job site in an industry.
“If the ACA is not fixed, if it destroys the health and welfare funds we fought for, it needs to be repealed!” O’Sullivan roared. “The proud men and women we represent cannot be collateral damage” of the health care law.
“The ACA as it currently stands is not meeting its promise,” added IBEW President Ed Hill, whose union and five others openly wrote congressional leaders saying they must fix the health care law.
“This is make-or-break for a lot of unions, not just the building trades,” warned Sheet Metal Workers President Joe Nigro. “A resolution is a piece of paper and may offend a lot of politicians, but a labor movement is run by leaders who represent working men and women. …You let the ACA bill go through like this and you won’t need a room a quarter of this size” for the next federation convention four years from now, he added.
“We have to follow this with action,” declared Unite Here President D. Taylor, after reminding delegates of ACA’s benefits – and of exceptions Obama already illegally granted to businesses, congressional staffers and to some religious-run enterprises.
Dissent also came from those who want to go further. Though both federation President Richard Trumka and Professional and Technical Engineers President Greg Junemann said the eventual goal of the resolution is single-payer government-run national health care, the compromise downplays that goal.
The other dissenter was Kathryn Donahue, board member of the California Nurses Association/ National Nurses Organizing Committee. Her union stayed away from the convention until its final session due to, among other issues, disagreement about the ACA. CNA/ NNOC, part of National Nurses United, has been one of labor’s most ardent advocates of single payer, which 21 unions endorsed before the AFL-CIO’s 2009 convention.
“The ACA does not solve the health care crisis facing all of the people, not just union people,” Donahue declared. “It will not improve access to health care” and “will not remove health care from collective bargaining,” she said. Her union provided the scattered “no” votes in the crowd when delegates approved the health care resolution by voice vote. The resolution specifies, among other things, that:
• The AFL-CIO backs single payer – along with other alternatives it OK’d in 2009.
• Demands Congress amend the ACA unless the act is “administered in a manner that preserves the high-quality coverage” of multi-employer plans.
• Says the multi-employer plans “should have access to the ACA’s premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions … just as for-profit insurance companies will.” The difference between the two has been the big problem in private talks Trumka and other union leaders have had with White House staffers. The White House has stonewalled.
• Says workers toiling more than 20 hours a week must be covered by ACA’s employer responsibility rules. The ACA now sets the lower limit at 30 hours per week. Several speakers at the convention said private firms – and some state and local governments – are racing to cut full-timers to 29 hours, to get out from under the act.
• Declares the employer responsibility rules should extend to construction companies with at least five employees, not 50. The 50-worker rule would exempt the overwhelming majority of construction firms, building trades leaders say.
• Reiterates unions’ strong opposition to taxing health care benefits. Obama strong-armed the AFL-CIO, at the end of the 2010 health care fight, into accepting such a tax on so-called “Cadillac” plans, in 2018.
Mark Gruenberg is editor of Press Associates Union News Service, 2605A P Street NW, Washington DC 20007. Phone: (202) 898-4825. E-mail: paiunionnews@yahoo.com. www.paiunionnews.com
AFL-CIO Convention Calls for Fixes in Affordable Care Act
By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO NOW blog, Sept. 11, 2013
Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention this afternoon passed a resolution expressing support for the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but also addressing a number of issues about the ACA’s implementation, including the way the ACA treats multi-employer health care plans. The resolution reiterates that the labor movement’s ultimate health care goal is health care for everyone under a single-payer model.
The resolution calls for preservation of high-quality coverage under multi-employer plans. It also calls for greater employer responsibility, especially in regards to part-time workers. Sean McGarvey, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), said the resolution, “Points out the key facts that must be addressed by the administration and if needed, by Congress.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the issues raised by the resolution ones of “fundamental fairness,” including if low- and moderate-income union members and their collectively bargained health care plans will
be able to benefit from the same premium support that big insurance companies will receive and if they will have to pay fees to subsidize big insurance companies. There also are concerns that smaller employers will be able to get away with taking health care away from workers while paying no penalty.
Laborers (LIUNA) President Terry O’Sullivan, who endorsed the resolution, told the convention delegates that without changes to the way the ACA is implemented, there are likely to be “unintended consequences” that will hurt workers’ health care coverage.
It needs to be changed and fixed now….We will work with the president to do everything we can to fix the Affordable Care Act….We want it fixed, fixed, fixed.
AFT Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson called the resolution “a road map to making the Affordable Care Act a success” and called the ACA, especially in the way it is being implemented by the federal agencies involved, “a work in progress.” She also said many AFT members, including para-professionals, adjunct college professors, nurses and public employees, have had their hours cut to under the 30-hour week threshold they must work before ACA requires employers to provide affordable, comprehensive health care coverage or pay a penalty.
Trumka did tell the delegates that “the labor movement is engaged in ongoing dialogue with a number of government agencies regarding implementation of the Affordable Care Act — especially the way it treats collectively bargained multi-employer funds.”
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/AFL-CIO-Convention-Calls-for-Fixes-in-Affordable-Care-Act
AFL-CIO steps up criticism of health care law
By Sam Hananel
The Associated Press, Sept. 11, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — The AFL-CIO on Wednesday approved a resolution critical of parts of President Barack Obama’s health care law in spite of efforts by White House officials to discourage the labor federation from making its concerns so prominent.
The strongly worded resolution says the Affordable Care Act will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them. Labor unions still support the law’s overall goals of reducing health costs and bringing coverage to all Americans, the resolution says, but adds that the law is being implemented in a way that is “highly disruptive” to union health care plans.
Some individual unions have complained about the law’s impact for months. The resolution marks the first time the nation’s largest labor federation has gone on record embracing that view. Unions were among the most enthusiastic backers of the law when it passed in 2010.
A labor official told The Associated Press that White House officials had been calling labor leaders for days to urge them not to voice their concerns in the form of a resolution. The official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the conversations publicly and requested anonymity, said many union leaders insisted that they wanted to highlight their concerns.
Asked about any efforts to discourage unions from passing the resolution, the White House said in a statement Wednesday night that officials “are in regular contact with a variety of stakeholders, including unions, as part of our efforts to ensure smooth implementation and to improve the law.”
The AFL-CIO, one of the president’s major boosters, approved the resolution just as the administration began rolling out a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to encourage Americans to sign up for health care exchanges starting Oct. 1.
Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, said the intent of the resolution is to “point out the criticisms without being overly caustic.”
“There have to be some changes made in the area that are giving a number of our unions great concern,” said Schaitberger, who chaired the committee that hammered out the resolution’s language.
The resolution was approved at the AFL-CIO’s quadrennial convention in Los Angeles. It claims the new law will increase costs for health plans that are jointly administered by unions and smaller employers in the construction, retail and transportation industries. That could encourage employers to hire fewer union workers or abandon the health plans altogether and force union members to seek lower-quality coverage on the new health exchanges.
Union officials are seeking rule changes that would make their low-income workers eligible for the same types of federal subsidies they could get in the exchanges. They have also suggested rules that would treat their multi-employer plans as qualified exchange plans under the new law.
But the Congressional Research Service issued a memo earlier this year finding that neither change is allowed through rulemaking. The AFL-CIO resolution calls for the law to be amended by Congress if new rules cannot satisfy their concerns.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka held meetings at the White House last month in which he and other union leaders pressed the administration to make changes. Trumka has said he is encouraged that the White House is listening, but that no firm proposals have been made.
In a statement issued earlier Wednesday, the White House said there is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that changes the law for union plans. The statement said the White House would continue to work with unions and other stakeholders on ways to ensure smooth implementation of the law.
The AFL-CIO resolution was toned down from a draft originally offered by Sean McGarvey, head of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department. The early draft said the AFL-CIO could no longer support the health care law and called for its repeal unless changes were made to protect union multi-employer plans.
Republican critics of the health care law have seized on the union complaints to fuel their push to repeal the law. At the same time, GOP leaders have warned the White House against carving out any special deal for unions.
“We will do whatever is within our power to ensure that the administration does not once again provide a special exemption to unions at the expense of American taxpayers,” Michigan Rep. Dave Camp and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch wrote in a letter this week to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Camp is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and Hatch is top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2013/09/11/afl-cio-steps-up-pressure-for-health-law-changes
