You Have to Be Kidding

We have been told that the health care reform bill working through Congress must include an excise tax to control costs but the “manager’s amendment” offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid excludes the Longshoremen’s Union from the tax.  The Wall Street Journal caught Reid and Big Labor with their hands in the cookie jar:

President Obama praised the Senate yesterday for clearing a 60-40 procedural vote on his health plan in the dead of night and “standing up to the special interests who’ve prevented reform for decades and who are furiously lobbying against it now.” They’re furiously lobbying all right—not against ObamaCare but for the sundry preferences in the Senate bill.

Start with the special tax carve-outs included in the “manager’s amendment” that Harry Reid dropped Saturday morning. White House budget director Peter Orszag has claimed that the bill’s 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance plans is key to reducing health costs. Yet the Senate Majority Leader’s new version specifically exempts “individuals whose primary work is longshore work.” That would be the longshoremen’s union, which has negotiated very costly insurance benefits. The well-connected dock workers join other union interests such as miners, electrical linemen, EMTs, construction workers, some farmers, fishermen, foresters, early retirees and others who are absolved from this tax.

In other words, controlling insurance costs is enormously important, unless your very costly insurance is provided by an important Democratic constituency.