DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Obamacare - Forced Unionization of Healthcare Workers?

This is all we need. I've personally seen how unions can screw good nurses over. The only ones that benefit are the lazy whiners....and healthcare suffers. Trust me, this is not a good thing. A local hospital here has a petition by RN's circulating to vote out their union.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574400571702189240.html

Read the Union Health-Care Label
Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals. .

MARK MIX

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.

Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.

Consider Kaiser Permanente, the giant, managed-care organization that has since 1997 proudly touted its labor-management "partnership" in scores of workplaces. Union officials play an essentially co-equal role in running many Kaiser facilities. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Kaiser plan "a framework for what every health care delivery system should do" at a July 24 health-care forum outside of Washington, D.C.

The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion medical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor's grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.

Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.

Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.

ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.

Exactly, my poor wife has to deal with it daily. She's helps manage a high school swimming pool. The Pool Supervisor has 30+ years of service and is pretty much untouchable. He's pretty apathetic about anything that goes on at the pool. If guards are late or won't do what they are supposed to, it's no big deal to him. My wife is #2, and she pretty much runs the pool for him ... otherwise it would fall apart.

The General Lifeguard is #3, and she couldn't be lazier. She sunbathes all day, and does pretty much nothing. At one point she was working 6 hour days and getting paid for 8 (on tax payer dollars) ... until another employee finally reported it to District and they slapped her on the wrist for it. They really can't fire her because they're all union, and you pretty much need an act of God and the Pool Supervisor to jump through 30 hoops. Like I said, he's too apathetic to do it himself ... so my wife is stuck doing the job of three, just because she actually cares about her work.

The original purpose of the union was to help protect hardworking employees from getting axed or over-worked by greedy company owners ... instead it's flipped completely around the other way, and forces greedy employees onto companies that are now forced to keep these minimal-workers on payroll.

The few nurses I know have been for healthcare reform for years.

http://www.rnaction.org/site/PageServer?pagename=nstat_homepage

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.






http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf


Subtitle B—Public Health Insurance Option
Sec. 221. Establishment and administration of a public health insurance option
as an Exchange-qualified health benefits plan.
Sec. 222. Premiums and financing.
Sec. 223. Payment rates for items and services.
Sec. 224. Modernized payment initiatives and delivery system reform.
Sec. 225. Provider participation.
Sec. 226. Application of fraud and abuse provisions.


16 SEC. 225. PROVIDER PARTICIPATION.
17 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish con-
18 ditions of participation for health care providers under the
19 public health insurance option.
20 (b) LICENSURE OR CERTIFICATION.—The Secretary
21 shall not allow a health care provider to participate in the
22 public health insurance option unless such provider is ap-
23 propriately licensed or certified under State law.
24 (c) PAYMENT TERMS FOR PROVIDERS.—


1 (1) PHYSICIANS.—The Secretary shall provide
2 for the annual participation of physicians under the
3 public health insurance option, for which payment
4 may be made for services furnished during the year,
5 in one of 2 classes:
6 (A) PREFERRED PHYSICIANS.—Those phy-
7 sicians who agree to accept the payment rate
8 established under section 223 (without regard
9 to cost-sharing) as the payment in full.
10 (B) PARTICIPATING, NON-PREFERRED
11 PHYSICIANS.—Those physicians who agree not
12 to impose charges (in relation to the payment
13 rate described in section 223 for such physi-
14 cians) that exceed the ratio permitted under
15 section 1848(g)(2)(C) of the Social Security
16 Act.
17 (2) OTHER PROVIDERS.—The Secretary shall
18 provide for the participation (on an annual or other
19 basis specified by the Secretary) of health care pro-
20 viders (other than physicians) under the public
21 health insurance option under which payment shall
22 only be available if the provider agrees to accept the
23 payment rate established under section 223 (without
24 regard to cost-sharing) as the payment in full.


1 (d) EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN PROVIDERS.—The Sec-
2 retary shall exclude from participation under the public
3 health insurance option a health care provider that is ex-
4 cluded from participation in a Federal health care pro-
5 gram (as defined in section 1128B(f) of the Social Sec-
6 rity Act).
7 SEC. 226. APPLICATION OF FRAUD AND ABUSE PROVI-
8 SIONS.


I dont see how this could cause Forced Unionization of Healthcare Workers.

this clearly only applies only to the Public Health Insurance Option.




IE: Subtitle B—Public Health Insurance Option
Sec. 225. Provider participation

17 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish con-
18 ditions of participation for health care providers under the
19 public health insurance option.

Quote:

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That's one of my biggest complaints about unions. Everyone gets treated equal, even if they don't deserve it. There's too many slackers in the world now that want to ride the coat tails of those that put in 110%.

And that goes to many things, not just unions.

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That sounds like........wait.......SOCIALISM.......everybody gets the same, no matter how hard you work or how lazy you are.

For example, you have a good position, you make $70k a year, with full benefits, I make $10k because im a bum. I don't pay taxes because I have 3 kids with 2 women who I don't really even know, and im on gov. assistance...etc.

I'm tax free because of my laziness but I have full health benefits....Now you get taxed an extra, well lets says 20%, for my healthcare and yours, and so does your company.

It's medi-whatever taken to the next level!!

Sorry bout this rant...