One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.

The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.

It baffles me how liberals can see this crap happening and say "well something had to be done" and say they still don't have a problem with the bill.

Simple. They're going to point to this crap as a reason we need to go even farther towards fully nationalized healthcare.

And I hope each and every person who thinks that has their children go up to them and punch their parents in the mommy daddy button until the twitching stops.

(As obviously, employers will ignore EMTALA and snoop on your medical history and then find a reason to fire or not hire you if you have an expensive health problem.)

It baffles me how liberals can see this crap happening and say "well something had to be done" and say they still don't have a problem with the bill.

I just suspect that a sizable percentage of the "don't blame me; it's the government's fault" stories are just p.r. excuses from employers that don't want to admit they chose to make a cut for normal business/economic reasons.

Because there's a very plausible (and honestly, I suspect a more frequently legitimate) alternate explanation: (i) the economy is in rough shape, so some employers simply need to cut costs to stay in business, and (ii) even those employers that don't need to cut know they can cut wages and benefits without worrying that employees will quit and go elsewhere because the labor market sucks so badly. In other words, many employers in the current economy would be cutting health coverage anyway, so in many cases, blaming it on health care reform is most likely just an excuse.

Which isn't to say that the reform law isn't having an impact at the margins. I honestly don't know - been too busy to follow much of anything in the news these days. I just suspect that a sizable percentage of the "don't blame me; it's the government's fault" stories are just p.r. excuses from employers that don't want to admit they chose to make a cut for normal business/economic reasons.

I don't disagree with your post, but I would be lying if I said I didn't chuckle quietly while reading this and thinking that the "company" in the OP doing this is the SEIU.

How do you get around the fact that the Healthcare Reform Act incentivizes dropping employer provided plans, particularly self-financed group insurance policies?

How do you get around the fact that the Healthcare Reform Act incentivizes dropping employer provided plans, particularly self-financed group insurance policies?

Dropping benefits just makes the employees you really want to keep go away and thats a loss of control which is not what businesses want.

Clearly, the union members need to organize some sort of organization to collectively bargain with their union, so that they will be protected from being abused and oppressed by their union.