How the Democrats rewarded the labor unions in the health care bill

It's no surprise that the Democrats have tucked all sorts of little bonuses for the labor unions into the almost 2000 pages of the health care bill recently passed. It's all part of the quid pro quo that they have going with the unions. The unions spend millions and send out their myrmidons to work to elect Democrats. And then the Democrats turn around and reward them. Kevin Mooney summarizes some of the treats for labor slipped into the bill.

Small wonder then that the push for health care "reform" has assumed a heightened importance, as it would provide union bosses with new privileges and authority that have escaped media attention and public scrutiny.

Consider the language contained in section 2531 submerged deep within the House version. Here the bill stipulates that any participating health care employer "provides wages and benefits to its nurses that are competitive for its market or that have been collectively bargained with a labor organization."

"This phrase 'competitive for its market' is not defined," said Greg Mourad, the main author of the NRTWC study. "This means the Obama administration will be free to define the phrase using Davis-Bacon standards and this would make it almost impossible for non-union employees to qualify."

The approach is similar to what has been done with apprentice programs in federal construction work, Stefan Gleason, vice-president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, explained.

"This is a scheme that is used to fund union organizations that are supposedly doing job training but are often doing other activities," he said. "The scenario that is set up essentially black-balls non-union contractors from even being eligible to work on federal contracts at all. There is a similar strategy at work here with health care."

Section 2531 also provides for state training partnership programs that include "even more explicit unionization requirements," according to the NRTWC study.

"The state training partnership flows in one direction and it does not have a provision for a non-union employee organization," Mourad said. "It has to be a labor organization."

.... Under section 164 of the House bill, union bosses who have mismanaged benefits for their own members are poised to receive a $10 billion bailout from U.S. taxpayers in the form of a "reinsurance program" that has been folded into the health care bill. Union health insurance funds only have about 30 cents available to cover each dollar of anticipated claims, according to the Lewin Group and other research firms.

There's more. Sections 123, 124 and 2251 of H.R. 3200 all create new avenues for union control on newly formed committees that administration officials could stack with union appointees.

Meanwhile, the Senate version includes language that could force home health care workers to into unions. California has a set the precedent here by re-classifying these workers as public employees for the purpose of collective bargaining.

A lot of back-scratching going on here. No surprise.