Stephen Lynch allows healthcare to be conflated with wages
Rep Stephen Lynch illustrates perfectly why Democrats lose. He demonstrates why they rarely win the moral argument. The provisions many unions are against is the Cadillac Tax within the Affordable Care Act, the ACA (Obamacare).
What is the Cadillac Tax that Stephen Lynch is concerned about?
Though not said explicitly, The Cadillac Tax was designed to reduce cost by preventing employers from shifting wages to health insurance as a sort of tax shelter. It taxes ultra high premiums over $10,200 per individual and $27,500 per family. After reviewing this year’s rates in Texas, good insurance can be had at less than a third of that price. Cigna has a pretty easy to understand document that explains the Cadillac Tax.
Stephen Lynch is tackling the wrong problem
Stephen Lynch first proudly declared that he voted against the Affordable Care Act because he read it. Really? What plausible alternative did he have for the millions whose finances, health, and lives were saved because there were responsible politicians who saw the big picture? Politicians that deferred from his demagoguery.
Rep. Lynch is correct that this tax could put companies that shifted wages to overpriced ‘healthcare’ benefits as a tax saving loophole, at a competitive disadvantage. That is because it was a trick in the first place used as a tax shelter for both the union employee and the employer.
Stephen Lynch should have been a more honest and a better negotiator as a union president and not attempt to use the tax system in lieu of the wages the employees of his union and all unions deserve and earned. Democrats lose because they play on the playing field of the Plutocrats without realizing that without the players the playing field is irrelevant. Without the workers there is no successful business.
Instead of attempting to find ways to help employers use the tax system, and the healthcare system to defer the costs of better wages to EVERY tax paying American, he should be fighting to solve the real problem. Healthcare should be decoupled from the employer.
Whether we have solely exchanges with private insurers or a single payer system, decoupling healthcare from the employer would allow them all to compete on an even playing field. Obamacare is not responsible for a rather outdated and dysfunctional system the union is partially responsible for. After all, it is the union that is partially responsible for employer based healthcare.