US News

Labor unions turning on ObamaCare

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s labor-union allies once cheered for ObamaCare — but now they’re screaming mad.

“It makes an untruth out of what the president said — that if you like your insurance, you could keep it,” said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “That is not going to be true for millions of workers now.”

Retail, construction, transportation and trade unions are outraged that the Affordable Care Act, which they used their political muscle to help pass, will undermine their multi-employee medical-insurance plans.

The plans are set to become exceedingly expensive, as ObamaCare requires coverage of pre-existing conditions and workers’ children up to age 26 with no annual or lifetime coverage limits.

Unions fear the higher costs will cause employers to drop the plans and send workers into state-run exchanges established by the law.

Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, fumed that labor’s concerns have been “totally ignored.”

“In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it,” he said.

The Big Labor backlash could spell trouble for Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections, when they’ll be counting on union help.

Labor isn’t the only force defecting from ObamaCare.

Outgoing Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who helped write the law, has called its implementation a “train wreck.”

Still, the White House and Democrats are hesitating to make changes.