Union leaders lukewarm about Senate health care bill

At least one union, the 150,000-member National Nurses United, blasted it as a giveaway to the insurance companies. In an interview on Air America, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, was caustic about how the insurers bought lawmakers’ support.

All unions, led by the AFL-CIO, vowed to campaign to pressure congressional negotiators to adopt the stronger House health care bill.

Senators approved the 2,700-page legislation, which would affect everyone in the U.S. and one-sixth of the economy, by a 60-39 party-line vote at 7 a.m., after marathon debate forced by the 40 Republicans. All 58 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats voted for it. All but one Republican voted against it: Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kent., was absent.

The legislation imposes new curbs, in several years, on insurance companies, including outlawing their common practices of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, denial of payments for care and ejection of policyholders when they get sick. It requires everyone, except for undocumented workers, to buy insurance, and provides subsidies for those who can’t afford it.

But the bill taxes 40 percent of the value of all existing health insurance policies worth more than $8,500 for an individual or $23,000 for a family. It has no cost controls and lacks a “public option” — a key labor cause, designed to provide competition to the insurers, their high co-pays, deductibles and premiums, and their 44,780 annual deaths.

Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee Chairman Thomas Harkin, D-Iowa, promised the public option would be revisited in future legislation. President Obama praised the Senate vote — and gave the back of his hand to the public option.

The holes prompted the lukewarm reaction from union leaders.

“The labor movement has been fighting for health care for nearly 100 years and we are not about to stop fighting now, when it really matters. But for this health care bill to be worthy of the support of working men and women, substantial changes must be made,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.

“We know we will fight. We will continue to fight for everything we know is important,” SEIU President Andy Stern said in an open letter posted on the union’s website.

“We will fight to make care affordable. We will fight for real health insurance reforms. We will fight for employers to provide their employees with coverage. And, we will fight to pay for all of it responsibly without a tax on your benefits.”

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.