Unions Gain Obamacare Exemptions after Complaining about Lack of Privileges

The Obama administration is exempting many labor unions from provisions of the new health care law after all.

Kaiser Health News reports that a new proposal exempts “certain self-insured, self-administered plans” from Obamacare’s 2015 and 2016 reinsurance fees, which applies to many Taft-Hartley unions that function as their own insurance company. Sure enough, the Federal Register confirms that this exemption is currently in place.

This exemption is dubious to say the least. Unions are the lifeblood of the Democratic party and they were key in President Obama’s election and reelection. On top of that, it seemed that Obamacare was actually going to be void of union handouts up until unions started complaining about bearing the higher costs of the new law along with everyone else.

Now, unsurprisingly, unions have won the reinsurance exemption, which was one of the goals that the AFL-CIO set for itself in their September conference.

But this major victory is still not enough for Big Labor, which has an insatiable desire for ever-increasing privileges.

Unions are now threatening to strike and labor leaders are publicly declaring that the law needs to be repealed if it does not grant further privileges to unions.

I can understand why Big Labor is so upset that they have to pay higher health care costs with everyone else: of all the groups that pushed for Obamacare in 2010, they might have pushed the hardest. If unions were comfortable with equal treatment, instead of clamoring for more privileges at every turn, a small part of me might actually feel bad for them.