Unions Spurn White House to Oppose Senate Health Bill (as well they and everyone should)

[brentspeak]

If Rahm really wants to know who "stopped meaningful health-care reform", he should look in the mirror and at Baucus, etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=aP9MCOiMezyk

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Twenty-seven U.S. labor unions defied White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and announced their opposition to the $829 billion health-care measure passed yesterday by the Senate Finance Committee.

The unions say in a full-page newspaper advertisement today that lawmakers need to make “substantial” changes to the bill or they will urge their members to seek its defeat on the Senate floor. Emanuel asked organized labor not to go public in opposition, said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“He told us that we really don’t want to be looked upon as the group that stopped meaningful health-care reform,” McEntee said in an interview yesterday. “We would love to be on the exact same page as the White House, but we see ourselves as fighting for our members.”

(snip)

The provision will become “a tax on the middle class,” who “through negotiations or otherwise, have employer-provided coverage,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in an e-mailed statement.

[gateley]

1. Aren't they planning on making "substantial" changes? I thought that was

the deal -- get something passed in the Finance Co then on to the 'real work' (which they're doing at the moment, right?)

I wish Dean and Sanders were in Harry's office with the rest of the group.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. The Baucus bill is NOT 'the' reform bill.

There will be changes. There will be a public option.

Or there will be hell to pay.

[WI_DEM]

3. Until I see the final bill I can't say if they actually are spurining the WH as Obama has called for

the Public Option.