Yesterday's announcement by the Service Employees International Union that it had inked a deal with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee to collude in support of the Orwellian "Employee Free Choice Act" (which will take away workers' right to a secret ballot for union certification) goes far beyond that abominable piece of legislation.
As I wrote a while back, the primary beneficiaries of government-monopoly health care are public-sector unions. Behind every effort to increase government control of health care, you'll find a union boss. This was embarrassingly disclosed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, fed up that the SEIU was bullying the White House into withholding California's Medicaid bailout (as punishment for the governor's reducing home-health-care workers' wages to plug the deficit).
I believe that one important reason for the failure of the government to monopolize health care has been the discord between the SEIU and the CNA/NNOC. This erupted during the 2007 debate over health reform in California, where the SEIU supported Schwarzenegger's scheme for compulsory enrolment in private insurance, whereas the CNA supported pure single-payer. The CNA's ally, state senator Sheila Kuehl, killed Schwarzenegger's bill in the senate.
So, if these two powerful unions have buried the hatchet, we should expect to see an even more comprehensive assault on individual choice in health care, as they combine to lobby for government take-over in every state capitol and DC.
Research and commentary from a former senior executive in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
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