The New Fundamental Organizing Principle

Welcome to the future:

In a win specifically for union members, negotiators were working out a plan to delay the tax from being imposed on collectively bargained health plans for several years.

What a splendid “win” for union members! What percentage of our rapidly dwindling work force belongs to labor unions? Well, according to this article from Workforce Management, it was about 12.1 percent in 2007. This means the other 87.9% of you non-unionized working stiffs will be subsidizing the prize won by union negotiators today. As the Associated Press report explains, you won’t be alone:

The agreement with labor came as the White House sought fresh concessions from drugmakers and other health care providers as they looked for funds to sweeten subsidies the bill provides for lower-income families who cannot afford coverage.

Those “fresh concessions” from drugmakers will rapidly become very stale price increases for consumers. I suppose it’s entirely reasonable to expect non-union workers to subsidize these concessions, because our noble union comrades “sacrificed higher wages” to obtain their fabulous health benefits:

The proposed tax has been a major sticking point because early versions from the Senate would have hit union members, who have negotiated generous health benefits, sacrificing higher wages. House Democrats were strongly opposed, and did not include the tax in their bill. But Obama favored the tax, citing the consensus opinion of economists that it would help hold down costs by nudging workers into less pricey coverage.

As of 2007, the average union worker made about $629 per week, compared to $404 for non-union workers, putting union wages about $5 per hour higher on average. Of course, these figures vary widely in specific industries. In lower-level service industries, union workers earn roughly the same amount as their non-union counterparts. This means that, among the lowest-paid union members, the “sacrifice” they made for their sacred health care benefits amounted to accepting the same wage as non-union workers. That’s without counting the panoply of fringe benefits available to union members, which can be extremely valuable.

Thus, our friends in the Democrat Party expect the rest of us to subsidize the expensive health-care benefits of their union allies, who are generally paid much more than we are. Union members won’t be among the workers getting “nudged into less pricey coverage” to hold down costs, since they will be legislatively immunized against such nudging. When you get nudged into less pricey coverage, I hope you’re comforted by the knowledge that your dental benefits and vision plan will be going to a deserving union member, who earned them by faithfully voting as instructed by his union leadership.

Welcome to Subsidy Nation, the midway point between a free-market democracy and a total command economy. The middle class has grown restless over endlessly rising tax rates, so the current statist strategy of choice involves using mandates on business, regulatory burdens, and special exemptions to pay off their favored constituencies. It’s not a new idea, but it’s exploded during the first year of this administration, and if the ObamaCare monstrosity is signed into law, it will become the fundamental organizing principle of our culture and economy...