Health Care: “Special Interest Democracy”
It may be hard to believe [/snark], but it appears when Democrats speak of “fairness” they define it in their own special interest kind of way.
Take the talk about taxing your private health care benefits (something adamantly opposed by Obama during the campaign).
Originally it was going to be everyone. But other Democrats complained mightily to Senate Democrats who were considering such a tax to pay for the conservatively estimated 1.5 trillion necessary to pay for “health care reform” (PAYGO? HA!). So they modified it a bit – tax the “rich” – those who had the best of coverage. Always a popular populist fallback, Sen. Dems were sure that would work.
Alas it was soon discovered that a huge number of those holding “Cadillac” health care policies were unions. Yes, the special interest group in the pocket of the Dems (and vice versa) would be heavily hit by such a tax. As you might imagine, they were not happy.
Solution – drop this bad idea?
Of course not. Instead exempt the unions, you silly person:
Mr. Baucus officially floated his plans for a tax this week, only with a surprising twist: His levy will not apply to union plans, at least for the duration of existing contracts. In other words, Mr. Baucus intends to tax the health-care benefits only of those who didn’t spend a fortune electing Democrats to office. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is circulating his own health-care reform, has also included provisions that will exempt unions from certain provisions.
The union carve-out is designed to allay the fears of many Democrats who remain outright hostile to a tax on health-care benefits, whether out of principle, political fear or union solidarity.
This is not your grandfather’s America. Pay czars who arbitrarily set arbitrary pay limits based on what they “think” (according to presidential spokesperson Robert Gibbs) is “fair”, a government appointed CEO for an auto company who admits he knows nothing about cars and the government hijacking of health care.
If you’re not concerned, you’re not paying attention.
~McQ