Today, Big Labor leaders will meet with President Obama in a session that is said to be closed to the press. One can only speculate, but if you’ve paid much attention at all to the response of Big Labor officials to the tax on “Cadillac Health Insurance Plans” proposed in the current health care bill, it won’t take much imagination to connect the dots on the likely direction of this meeting. Union officials have lambasted the “Cadillac plan tax” in the health care legislation, since many of the plans in unionized companies fall into this category. They had actually attempted to get an exemption written into the bill that would exclude from such a tax companies that were unionized. Obama’s polls are tanking – he needs the health care bill to move ahead, yet Big Labor has not been willing to fall in line with their support. Big Labor needs – is desperate for – the Employee Free Choice Act to pass. It is highly likely that 2010 elections will strip the Democrats of the 60-vote majority necessary to end filibuster on the bill, and in fact, if the upcoming election in Massachusetts to replace deceased Senator Ted Kennedy gets away from the Democrats, their majority could end this month. So – as to this afternoon’s meeting…? Obama could very likely agree to push the EFCA forward – muscling any Blue Dog Dems still equivocating, IF the Big Labor leaders agree to quit griping and fall in line in support of the health care bill. Obama can always promise to eventually neuter the Cadillac Plan tax provision from the bill in the future, and move the plan to the true government (public option) health plan that the unions were pushing for. (We’ve already heard through our D.C. grapevine that Senator Ben Nelson has already promised to support cloture on EFCA in exchange for his vote on the health care bill. Are the dominoes starting to fall…?) It will be interesting to read what the union bigs have to say in the next few day.
