Thursday, September 10, 2009

THE BIG UNION PAY BACK!!





Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

Talk about regulation of people's lives. The Wall Street Journal reports that hidden within the over 1000 pages of HB 3200 is the biggest pay off and pay back to Unions for their over 500 million dollars that helped sweep Republicans out of Congress and elect Obama.

Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.

Consider Kaiser Permanente, the giant, managed-care organization that has since 1997 proudly touted its labor-management "partnership" in scores of workplaces. Union officials play an essentially co-equal role in running many Kaiser facilities. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Kaiser plan "a framework for what every health care delivery system should do" at a July 24 health-care forum outside of Washington, D.C.

The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion medical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor's grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.
Baucus is a Democrat from Montana( chairman of the Senate who has served in the Senate since 1978, and is the seventh longest-serving senator as of 2009.
It is no wonder the Union Lobbyists have got their hooks in him!

Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.Source:The Wall Street Journal

U.S. Senator Max Baucus finally broken his silence regarding his personal position on including a public option in health care reform legislation. Monday night (8/17/09), in an unprecedented conference call to Montana Democratic central committee chairs, the powerful leader of the Senate Finance Committee told his strongest supporters that he supported a public option. While discussing the obstacles to getting a public option through the Senate, he assured his forty listeners, "I want a public option too!" source:Gossip Rocks.com

This means that any proposal from a Democrat will probably open the door to the so called Public Option. This is a semantic euphemism for Socialized Medicine! And the main beneficiaries will not be the patients but the Unions!

And while Americans are distracted by the Health Insurance rancor the Democratic controlled Senate committee strikes a blow to our defense capabilities, and allows the USA to share valuable technology with foreign buyers.

A Senate panel urged the Air Force on Thursday to start developing an export model of its F-22 Raptor, the most advanced U.S. fighter jet, even as it voted to end U.S. purchases.

Japan, Israel and Australia have shown interest in buying the supersonic, radar-evading F-22 Raptor, designed to destroy enemy air defenses in the first days of any conflict and clear the way for other missions.

Foreign sales were banned by a 1998 law aimed at protecting the "stealth" technology and other high-tech features said to have made the F-22 too good for money to buy.The bill, adopted 30 to 0 in 15 minutes without debate, largely backed program cuts sought by President Barack Obama. Overall, it provided $636.3 billion for defense in fiscal 2010, which starts October 1.

If enacted, the measure adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee would let the Defense Department prepare a modified F-22 that protects classified and sensitive information, technologies and U.S. war fighting capabilities.Source:

Both this bill and the Democrats Public Option health plan should be soundly opposed!

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