The bosses of Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME), Andy Stern and Gerald McEntee, know that ObamaCare will hurt the very workers that they claim to represent.
But, it appears that they just don’t care!
These two union bosses who stand to gain the most power under ObamaCare are spending hundreds of millions of forced union dues promoting ObamaCare. A government run health insurance program is an SEIU and AFSCME “membership net” designed to eventually complete the capture of 21.1 million forced-dues paying government workers.
It is clear that Big Labor is banking on the probability that all healthcare workers eventually become federal, state, and municipal healthcare employees.
According to SEIU’s numbers submitted to the Obama transition organization (The National Heath Care Workforce Enhancement Initiative, 12/3/2008), public sector labor bosses like Stern and AFSCME’s Gerald McEntee have 21.1 million reasons to support ObamaCare. After the November election, Stern’s SEIU submitted the following health occupation numbers to Rahm Emmanuel et al. at Obama, Inc.:
…there are currently 17.6 million jobs in health care settings or in health occupations nationally, accounting for almost 12% of the workforce. In addition to nursing and direct care workers, the United States faces looming personnel shortages in many health professions such as physicians and pharmacists.
Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that we will need 3.5 million more workers to meet the [current] increasing demand of health care services.
That’s 21.1 million workers that SEIU and AFSCME expect will eventually become federal or state employees; employees that Stern and McEntee could force into their unions by the stroke of a Presidential pen.
If the average dues were just $75 a month, 100% participation would translate into $19 billion per year in forced union dues for SEIU and AFSCME. That’s a big piece of pie!
Stern’s and McEntee’s hyperventilation over passage of a government-run health insurance program will likely lead to the elimination of existing generous health plans for state and local government employees as out of control municipal and state budgets force the easy choice to switch state and county employees over to the new “national” healthcare plan.
Numerous examples of Big Labor’s propaganda highlight the sunny-side of the healthcare debate, but almost all fail to highlight the damage that will be done to current working members. ObamaCare will likely cost teachers, state employees, county employees, and other government employees their current Obama classified Cadillac-health plans. If a special collectively bargained health insurance carve out appears in the current plan, it will be quickly eliminated when the first poll reveals overwhelming electorate anger at government employees getting plans that most Americans are denied under ObamaCare. Politicians will appear overnight promising to eliminate the special plans and “fix” the problem.
This healthcare bill on top of the other gargantuan spending by the Obama Administration will cost jobs. It will cost union jobs. And, Big Labor Bosses must know it. They likely have already made the calculations figuring in large losses of current members. But, ObamaCare is not about current members. Union officials have 21.1 million other reasons to support it.
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