CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It is true, they supported the bill, they supported the administration, they helped elect it, had the boots on the ground and they were swindled, but it isn't as if they weren't warned. People who looked at the bill said the way it is constructed, there's this huge incentive for any business, small business, to drop the number of employees under 50, the firms are now known as the 49ers, so people get fired as a way to get under the requirement of employer mandate.



It also means that a lot of full time employees are going to lose at least ten hours of work, they have to get under 30 hours. So, if you're a full-time worker now, you're not going to be able to support a family on part time income. But the worst is as you indicated, that they're going to lose their members. The glory of the union movement is that beginning in the second World War when there were wage and price controls, companies competed against each other by including health care in the package. That was the beginning of that. And that's one of the great achievements of unions.



Now what they're seeing is workers are looking at the exchanges and seeing, 'I can drop out of the employer plan, I get a huge subsidy, I come out ahead, and don't have to be a member of the union.' So this is a disaster for the unions and that's why you have this letter of desperation and disappointment. (Special Report, July 17, 2013)