Labor Warns Dems: We'll Sit Out Election If You Oppose Public Plan

One of the country's most prominent union officials is warning that big labor may pull its support from Democrats who don't fight for a government-run insurance plan.

In an interview with the Huffington Post on Saturday, Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer and likely next president of the AFL-CIO, said his federation is drawing a line in the sand when it comes to a public option in the health care bill. Lawmakers who don't support the provision, he said, shouldn't take anything for granted.

"We'll look at every one of their votes," Trumka said after his speech at the Netroots Nation convention. "If they're against the Employee Free Choice Act, if they're against health care for that reason, I think it'll be tough for them to get support from working people."

Trumka's remarks were echoed privately by several other labor officials at the convention in Pittsburgh. In particular, the emerging Senate Finance Committee plan - which seems unlikely to contain a public option and could end up taxing pricey health care packages - seems almost guaranteed to incite the unions.

"We'll oppose it," Trumka said, when asked about any bill that ends the tax exemption for employer coverage. "It's actually a stupid concept because if you tax those that have it to pay for those that don't, eventually those that have [benefits] won't. Then who do you ultimately tax?"

Trumka's warning shots come at a time that the AFL-CIO is charting out a more aggressive campaign to target lawmakers who, as one official put it, "take labor's help but don't vote for labor's interests." Part of that process is to hold out the prospect of electoral consequences.

Former DNC Chair, Howard Dean, likewise predicted that Democrats who vote against the public option would have to deal with a primary challenge.

Meanwhile, a group of progressive members of the House of Representatives made it clear on Monday that they will not support a health care bill that doesn't include a government run option for insurance coverage.

The AFL-CIO also intends to campaign against targets within the Republican Party and conservative media. In his speech on Saturday, Trumka called out "the entire cast at Fox News," for perpetuating fear and mistruths about the President's health care agenda. He also called Rush Limbaugh a "loudmouth," and decried the fake-grassroots movements being orchestrated in opposition to Democratic reform.

"We are going to continue to mobilize and counter the lies and the myths that they're trying to create to defeat this," he told the Huffington Post. "The special interests, the pharmaceutical industry, the health care industry are so vested in the current system they'll so anything to keep it this way and we have a job to do there.

"We're also going to keep politicians strong so that they don't listen to the moneymen and continue to erode away or negotiate away a program [so much that it] ultimately becomes useless. Right now, without a public option [reform] becomes useless. It won't change the current system."

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Comments

[Alabama John]

03:33 PM on 08/21/2009

NBC HEADLINE: "Public option' — From obscurity to center stage"

A profound lie and a truth. To the indifferent majority who read only main stream media, and only once or twice a week, the term "public option" surely was obscure until about July or August.

But for anyone who has been following this debate since the election, is has been top priority and center stage. For we all knew it was our only hope for healthcare reform, and deep in our guts we knew radical right and conservative Obama would never let it happen.

[SOLERSO68]

04:30 PM on 08/21/2009

Precisely true. The "public option" or some reasonable facscimile probably gave Obama 6-7% nationally. hje was elected, more than any other single issue, to deliver REAL HEALTHCARE "REFORM". I seem to remeber that during the campaign it wasnt called "reform" it was called bringing universal health care.

[DestinationsUnknown]

10:17 AM on 08/20/2009

C-SPAN TOWN HALL -

Showing Mississippi Town Hall D- Gene Taylor

[bighat]

10:10 PM on 08/19/2009

Considering how the public feels about union thugs beating up honest citizens who express their displeasure with congressional representatives the democrats may want the unions to keep their help to themsleves.

What have unions done for us lately. They have caused companies to fail and jobs to move overseas.

However we should thank them. Robotics and automatic equipment would have never gotten off the ground if not for unions.

My hat is off to the unions for their help in technology advancement. T just wished they would not have sent so many jobs to other countries.

[Alabama John]

03:48 PM on 08/21/2009

UNTRUE -- UNTRUE -- UNTRUE

Having worked under unions for over 25 years, and now owning an automation service called Robotics Unlimited, most of the thugs I have seen involved in labor were those hired by employers.

Without unions President Roosevelt would have done nothing for labor, and to this day we would not have so much as a minimum wage.

Troubleshooting manufacturing control system being my life's work, never have I seen unions do anything but follow the lead of industry in automation. Not hindered it or helped it but willingly followed it.

So much darkness in this world, so many claim to have light but they only lead us into more darkness.

[SOLERSO68]

04:31 PM on 08/21/2009

"the public" in your rant are more of the coporate slugs and their poor, white, ignorant, pets. "the public" sadly, dosent have a real opinion about most labor issues.

[Alabama John]

11:04 AM on 08/23/2009

The public is like the six employees at Wal-Mart who I offered to help form a union. All dressed poorly, all making poverty wages and all brainwashed against unions. And one or all told managment, as three goons then came to me with a warning -- stop organizing or be evicted from the store.

[hankelvis]

03:38 PM on 08/19/2009

Government Healthcare - Corporations win, pay zero health benefits, prayer-free hospitals.
Employee Free Choice Act - Corporations win, limits employee rights, salaries controlled.
Unions and big business stage an economic crisis and install a new government. The people buy it even though there is no market crash. Then, all of the corporations reorganize. The state media and the new government support corporations and the unions. Same media is owned by the largest corporation in the world. Same corporation has giant government contract to provide health care related services while unions control workers. Scooby removes Pelosi mask and..gasp..it is really old man Smithers!

[whfowler]

02:53 PM on 08/19/2009

It will be hard to lower the healthcare cost when most working people's health insurance is so inexpensive that costs are hidden. When sweet deals are made between Big Business and Big Labor, reform is impossible. Insurance, like any commodity, should be an individual purchase. But consolidating purchase in massive labor contracts, making it part of employment perks has isolated the rising costs of healthcare behind low copays and deductibles that are negotiated. Then the sweet deals making the corporate portion of health insurance tax deductible has done nothing to lower costs. HMO's and similiar plans have taken away true doctor/patient relationships forcing hospitals and doctors to game the system. Government control will not improve healthcare since the real costs will be hidden behind taxes, deficit spending, and national debt. What will happen is rationed healthcare at a higher scale than the insurance companies are already doing. None of the proposals I have seen will solve the problems of financing healthcare. Instead, they will just shift control of the problems to the government. They have already proved that they can't manage healthcare by the example of Medicare, Medicaid, and VA care. If real reform is to take place, all government control must cease. Health insurance must be totally open market. Government regulation that forces insurance companies to operate only within a state must be removed so competition is open. Taxes should be the same as any other commodity. A person's personal medical needs should dictate what insurance they purchase.

[nccp1870]

02:18 PM on 08/19/2009

Medical Poverty and Traumatic Bankruptcy are a national disgrace. People understand this and acted on it during the last election.

To not follow through now, to pretend the public option---already a compromise to single payer---was readly expendable will be a political and economic disaster.

Get back to work. Stop pretending you can continue to appease the Health Care Cartel and make the necessary national adjustments to reclaim the moral and international high ground this country once occupied.

[ChicagoNurseActivist]

02:16 PM on 08/19/2009

I am very happy to see AFL-CIO Leader Richard Trumka is standing up for a "Choice" in the Access to Healthcare. I wish AFL-CIO would just get behind a Single-Payer Health Care System, Everybody IN and Nobody Out because the Public Options is also a waterdown bandaid solution. The passage of a Public Option will keep a lot of Nurses at home in 2012. It is not a Single-Payer System or a Public Options that have pulled the plugged on our Patients; It's the Private Insurance Companies CEOs who have not only pulled the plug on senior citizens but pulled the plug on a 17 Year old girl in California when they denied her a transplant. The Insurance Companies CEOs are the ones who have signed off on a Do Not Resusistate Order for the Uninsured and the Under Insured American Workers.

[DallasMike]

01:47 PM on 08/19/2009

Why are the Unions using threats? their exempt from this health care plan.

[seted]

01:59 PM on 08/19/2009

If everyone has the chance for health care that will be better for businesses. We will be able to compete with Canada and the rest of the world with a more level playing field. Businesses make more money, better for the workers who won't have to sit down and negotiate for health care. every one wins.

[rmreddicks]

02:11 PM on 08/19/2009

Everyone other than insurance companies seem exempt from this health plan. Enjoy the teabag.

[rain33]

01:06 PM on 08/19/2009

i am tired of it too because i voted for change and if the democrats won't deliver health care, i will be sitting home for the next serious of elections. as far i am concern, president obama needs to be a man and start thinking like a democrat.stop listening to harry reid and conserative democrats because they don't got any balls to fight back against gop and right-wing wrecking crew.obama better stop fighting back and WHOOP SOME OLD GRUMPY MEN NOW!

[research]

01:03 PM on 08/19/2009

Don't sit out the election! Vote out the conservative fake DLC dem!

Go to Kucinich and Dean for advice and news. Go to Movon for help selecting real liberal candidates, not these corporate decoys.

Kucinich/Dean 21012!

[DallasMike]

01:49 PM on 08/19/2009

ya elect people who are even more to the left and see what happens. You guys have a majority ram it down America throats and see what happens in 2010.

[rmreddicks]

02:14 PM on 08/19/2009

Well written, my bad child. Holy mother of god, you live in Dallas? Sorry.

[research]

02:54 PM on 08/19/2009

You guys majority is conservative DLC fake democrats.

We are getting a conservative agenda.

People wanted the liberal reforms, though bullied by the MSM right to fear the Word Liberal.

Values and agenda polls, show KUCINICH and DEAN in 70% agreement on positions.

Where were you when war, torture, spying, and constitution burning where taking place under BushCO?

[CJvandetti]

12:48 PM on 08/19/2009

Yes, I guess that big business medical lobby can buy the White House in its entirety and then have the hacks try to convince us that the public option wasn't promised and wasn't even very important. I'm a lifelong Democrat so I would have voted for Obama anyway, but in this economy I wouldn't have responded regularly to his pleas for money if I had known that the public option was just an election come-on to him. To me, a 63 year old, it's vitally important because I would like to leave our children with a system that does not drive ordinary people to medical poverty--even if they have insurance. Now that I discover the public option was just a ploy to get my vote and my money, I can tell the White House that this will be the last time I vote for Obama if the public option is not available to me and the next generations of my family by the time he runs again. I would never vote Republican, but I often am forced to throw my vote away to the left and I will not hesitate if this "bait and switch" cheats me.

[rmreddicks]

12:46 PM on 08/19/2009

Really, what happened with holding O and the D's feet to the fire? Do they want to govern or just keep feeding at the trough? Money talks. People just listen.

[rmreddicks]

12:56 PM on 08/19/2009

Sorry for self reply.

Left out "all but as craven as Clinton's, Reagan's and the family Bush". Obama has not disappointed me so far. I rather much expected that this would be the way. I'm certain of the difficulties politic but Obama has acted as little more than a ward heeler. He has more than half the nation behind him. He has to use it. Before it goes away.

[DallasMike]

01:52 PM on 08/19/2009

He had a little more than half the nation and those were mainly independents and he is losing more of those by the day.

[Whitley2009]

12:21 PM on 08/19/2009

The Republican health care companies want to deny us our OPTION, let's create a federal commssion and deny them their OPTION to charge high prices. Fair is fair.

Communicate this idea to your Cong'n, Senators, and the White House.

[jayraye]

11:58 AM on 08/19/2009

True then and true now (paraphrased).


(That Big Insurance Gang of Thieves) They know their day is doomed. But they are going to give us a fight, and if they want to we are going to give them a fight, and we know how to raise He// as well as they do.
Mother Jones
Williamson, W Va
June 20, 1920

[Donkey Kong]

11:43 AM on 08/19/2009

I would let the plan go and the bill fail. Don't even bring it to a vote, then blame big business and the republicans. It is sure to help in the 2010 elections. It will pass easily after that. Let the rich sob's pay for our healthcare. It is our right, just like free speech.

[DallasMike]

01:57 PM on 08/19/2009

What are you going to blame the Republicans for? You have the majority; you have all the special interest if the Dems wanted to they could ram this though.

[seted]

02:06 PM on 08/19/2009

That's what the Democrats had to do with social security in the 20s and medicare in the 60s. They had no or very little help from the repubs. Funny how the jackals want to take credit for it now.