June 29, 2015
By LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan
Washington, D.C. – The ACA has enabled millions of Americans to have access to healthcare benefits which is a good thing, however, those benefits have come at the expense of and on the backs of working men and women. The Supreme Court’s ACA ruling is an opportunity for Congress to stop the Obama Administration’s pick-pocketing of working people so that the law lives up to its intention of providing access to affordable quality healthcare for all.
LIUNA will work with like-minded members of Congress to achieve more equitable policy that truly provides affordable quality healthcare for all without mandating lower quality care for the working class.
Millions of workers in multi-employer plans, including LIUNA members, have had quality coverage for generations. They collectively bargained for it, paid for it out of their paychecks, and were never a drag on our nation’s health care system. Unless Congress fixes the ACA, their plans will be
destroyed through new costs and taxes, such as the 40-percent so-called “Cadillac tax” and the transitional reinsurance tax. In just one year, without covering the cost of a single doctor’s visit or hospital stay, the transitional reinsurance tax drained $45 million from LIUNA affiliated health plans. The fees and taxes make the “Affordable” in the ACA an oxymoron.
The ignorance and the arrogance of the Administration and many in Congress is evident in the disrespect shown to working men and women in the writing and implementation of the ACA. The
Administration bent over backwards to make changes for corporations and insurance companies, but has totally disregarded the issues affecting the working class. We call on Congress to seize this opportunity to fix Obamacare.
*** Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made this statement on the King v. Burwell Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
