Friday, January 8, 2010

Working Families Need Health Care Reform, NOT Higher Taxes!

AFSCME Council 4 along with five other unions and the Connecticut AFL-CIO sponsored full-page ads in four daily newspapers. Headlined "Working families need health care reform, NOT higher taxes," The ad calls upon readers to call the congressional delegation and urge language in the final bill "be taken from the House version, HR 3590, which pays for health care reform with a surtax on the wealthiest earners -- the same earners who benefited so much from the failed tax policies of the Bush era. The House plan gets it right."

The unions are concerned that the Senate version would require 20% of workers who currently have health care coverage to pay tax on it they warn that the tax would not lower costs, but would result in loss of coverage. The ad quotes a mercer survey of health plan sponsors indicating that "63% say they would cut covered benefits to avoid the new tax -- and nearly ten percent of small employers would end their plans altogether."

No comments: