Those are the haughtily-spoken, blatantly-incorrect words of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, while the 2,163,744 word Affordable Care Act was being shoe-horned through Congress in late 2009 and 2010.
Fast forward a few years to 2013, and the date of implementation is right around the corner. What states like California and Ohio are discovering already is that implementing this amount of government apparatus is going to cost the average American time, money, and hassle. Premiums on the individual market could more than double. The IRS, unimpeachably fair institution that it is *cough, cough*, will be given 46 new powers to collect information, levy taxes, and determine eligibility among other things. Now, even the very muscle that pushed Obamacare forward is coming to regret it.
In an open letter to Congresswoman Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Mr. James Hoffa of the Teamsters' Union (yes, the name caught our eye too), as well as James Hanson of the UFCW and D Taylor of UNITE-HERE delineate the reasons that their organizations can no longer support this law. Many of the promises made about Obamacare during its controversy by the administration are now being proven false when the rubber meets the road.
The Union bosses now realize that the law incentivizes businesses to cut workers' hours to below the minimum 30-hour line at which Obamacare dictates an employer must cover an employee with a healthcare plan. Less hours AND no healthcare for workers are just the beginning of the consequences of the bill. Past that, the non-profit healthcare plans that were made possible by the Hartley-Taft Act would suffer under the ACA since it subsidizes for-profit plans, but taxes the two at the same level. This will drive non-profit plans under, and funnel employees to the more expensive for-profit plans to which they fought so hard for an alternative.
This is nothing new, as Mr. Hoffa reminds the two legislators in the letter...
"As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies."
The manifold problems with the Affordable Care Act have been constant concerns for the GOP in the last three years. Not in a long time has a law met with this kind of resistance AFTER it has already passed.
Now that the regulatory ceiling is coming down on the American people, more and more are realizing that that opposition was based on wise principles, and valid predictions. I expect more to come out against the law as the deadline nears. But this is a HUGE blow to what amounts to the crown cubic-zirconium in the Obama Presidency.
No comments:
Post a Comment