First the Teamsters, UFCW, and UNITE-HERE expressed their belated disapproval of the ObamaCare Tax monstrosity, and now the IRS employee union wants to be exempted from Obamacare. The Teamsters, et al., made points that we’ve been making since 2009, points they willfully ignored and openly scoffed at us for making:

When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class. (full text of letter sent to Pelosi and Reid)

Yes, they are just now realizing that the “new normal” mandated by ObamaCare is a 30-hour work week, something that many of us warned would have massive economic and cultural repercussions, many of which would hurt the middle and lower-middle classes. It’s not rocket science, but for some reason, these unions are only now thinking it through. Ditto the fact that Obama was disingenuous, knowingly so, when he repeatedly told Americans that if we liked our insurance, we could keep our insurance. Even a cursory reading of only the first four-hundred or so pages of the ACA (all that I managed to wade though) proved that to be false. Frankly, common sense said that had to be a lie, just as common sense revealed the ridiculous fabrication that was Obama’s claim that ObamaCare would not raise the federal deficit by even “one dime”–a claim he later acknowledged was patently false.

On the one hand, I’m not unhappy that these unions are finally figuring out what we’ve been saying all along: ObamaCare will do far more harm than good, not only to our country’s health care system and economy but to the majority of Americans who are currently covered by either private or public plans. It never really made sense to destroy a system that was satisfactory to the majority (253.4 million) to accommodate a mere fraction of that (10-30 million, depending on sources); well, it made sense if the goal was ultimately a national health service, but that’s another story.

And on the other hand, these are some of the same unions who, immediately upon the passage of the ACA and ever since, received a flurry of waivers from it. So here they are again, seeking special exemptions from something that they admit they worked hard to push:

We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.

They pushed it, they can live with the results just like the rest of us. Congress should not be permitted to exempt itself and its staff on the same grounds: you think it’s great for everyone, then you need to enjoy the fabulousness along with the rest of us.

The latest union to resist ObamaCare is even more ironic. And outrageous. Not only will the IRS, in whom and with good reason Americans now have very little trust and for whom many of us have even less respect, be the primary enforcers, but they will also have access to still more personal information, personal information with which they’ve demonstrated they cannot be trusted. I find it particularly abhorrent that the same group who will be enforcing the ObamaCare Tax on the rest of us think they, themselves, should be exempted.



