thunder wrote:
On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:18:04 -0500, D.Duck wrote:


Why are union members excluded until 2017? Any rational reason except
politics?

The argument goes, unions bargained for improved health care coverage,
instead of wage increases. Taxing their coverages would mean they would
be paying an overall higher percentage than other working stiffs. Labor
contracts generally run 5 years, meaning the present ones will have
expired, by 2017. Then there is politics.

Correct, Mr. T, and it also depends upon the employment sector. The
scenario you describe most closely fits industrial and service sector
employees, who indeed gave up significant pay raises in order to get
better health care and sometimes pension benefits. In most of the
construction unions, the $$$ negotiations are over the hourly rate,
which the union members then decide how to divvy up between health care,
pension, savings accounts and net paycheck. In the last six or eight
years, the hourly rates have been pretty flat, but the amounts coming
out of that hourly rate for health care have skyrocketed.