SEIU sells out on Prop. 45

[KamaAina]

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article3481957.html

It’s clear why health care insurance companies and providers would want to defeat Prop. 45. To date, the industry has spent more than $57 million to kill the ballot measure and protect its huge profits and lavish executive compensation packages, outspending proponents 14 to 1. “Nonprofit” Kaiser Permanente, which has made more than $13 billion since 2009, including more than $2.1 billion so far this year, has spent $20 million to defeat the measure.

It’s also clear why working families and health care workers would support Prop. 45. If passed, Prop. 45 would protect families from skyrocketing health care premiums and help ensure affordable coverage for all Californians. It would require health insurers such as Kaiser, Blue Cross and Sutter Health to publicly justify their rate increases.

So why has the Service Employees International Union – the nation’s largest health care workers union – joined health insurance corporations in opposition to Prop. 45?

The answer: A few months ago, SEIU signed a corrupt deal with those companies in which it promised that in return for the opportunity to unionize 60,000 California health care workers, SEIU would not criticize these corporations or support legislation they oppose. SEIU explicitly agreed to prohibit its 150,000 California members from participating in “communications that degrade or attack a signatory hospital or health system or the hospital industry” or that raise “concerns about hospital pricing and executive compensation in health care.”

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Shame on SEIU. They've sold their souls...

[nashville_brook]

2. ugh.

[daredtowork]

3. That was an epic mistake

Is there a time frame on that deal? A union should never constrain its members from speaking out about their working conditions as a matter of principle.

Did the members vote for that?

I agree- SEIU delegitimized itself as a representative of its members. A terrible turn for one of the few powerful unions left.

[GeorgeGist]

4. Greed is in our DNA.

[dhill926]

5. Ah, I was wondering about this…

Thanks.

[blkmusclmachine]

6. ,

,

[Tumbulu]

7. Why is Nancy Pelosi so against it?

claiming that it will destroy the affordable care act? This info is plain sad!

[KamaAina]

8. Say WHAT??

[antiquie]

9. Very sad, link here. The Party SUPPORTS Prop 45.

"If I wanted to kill the Affordable Care Act, I would do this," Pelosi told the Chronicle.

Consumer Watchdog responded in a letter to Pelosi blasting her remarks.

In the letter, Harvey Rosenfield, the group's founder, complains that Pelosi did not call him beforehand.

"If you had called," he writes, "we could have saved you the embarrassment of regurgitating nearly verbatim the ridiculous arguments made by the health insurance companies in their desperate campaign to protect their excessive profits against rate regulation."

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