Tell Your Senators: Stop the Health Care Tax!

Union members have worked hard to expand health care coverage to millions of American families.  The last thing we need is to be taxed on our benefits.

Taxing the health care benefits of working families as income would increase the cost of health care and lead many employers to stop providing health benefits altogether.

Please join SMWIA members from across the country in contacting your elected representatives and urging them to vote NO to a tax on your health benefits.

We will keep you informed of our efforts to stop this tax.  In the meantime, you can read a copy of the letter sent to members of the US Senate by the SMWIA General President Sullivan and SMACNA along with another letter that was signed by the SMWIA and 30 other labor organizations from the AFL-CIO and Change to Win as well as another from the SMWIA and our partners in the Building and Construction Trades. 

Far from moving us in the direction of comprehensive health care reform, a tax on our hard earned health benefits would only make the problem worse.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: No Health Care Tax On Working Families!

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

Access to health care coverage is a major problem in America. I applaud Congress for taking on this difficult issue on which action has been long overdue.

Taxing the health care benefits of working families as income is not real health care reform. It would increase the cost of health care and lead many employers to stop providing health benefits altogether, making the health care problem in America worse.

Middle-class families are already struggling to pay their health care costs. As a member of the Sheet Metal Workers? International Association, I have given up increases in my wages in order to fully fund rising health care premiums. These increases have been caused by the medical attention given to underinsured workers whose employers refuse to provide health care coverage. It?s about time those employers were required to provide health care coverage.

I urge you to VOTE NO to a tax on health care benefits which will do nothing to solve the health care crisis in America.

I look forward to your prompt response to this matter.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
June 29, 2009


Background Information

 

In his failed run for the presidency, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proposed taxing working families’ health care benefits as part of his deeply flawed plan for health care reform.

 

The reaction was intense. Unions, health care reform advocates and consumers resoundingly rejected the idea. Even Democratic candidate Barack Obama blasted the McCain proposal and spent millions of dollars running ads attacking him on this issue.

 

But today, the idea of taxing health care benefits has resurfaced.  The call to tax your health care benefits is buried in legislation now being considered by the Senate Finance Committee as one of several possible ways to finance comprehensive health care reform.  It has been insisted upon by members of the Republican minority and is being championed by Democratic Senators such as Max Baucus from Montana, all in a quest to achieve supposed “bipartisanship” on health care reform.

 

This tax may bring smiles to GOP Senators who believe they will be guaranteed a return to their 1994 ascendency if it gets passed, but it will spell significant financial hardship for hard working American men and women who cannot afford such a tax.

 

After suffering under 8 years of economic mismanagement, this is an additional hardship that union members cannot afford nor will accept.  Already, 30 percent of members' healthcare premiums compensate the uninsured and the underinsured. A tax on healthcare benefits is estimated to cost our members thousands of dollars more a year.

 

Health care reform is urgently needed in America.  However, it cannot work if it is built on the backs of union members who sacrificed to ensure their families would not go without coverage.  We have given thousands in concessions to maintain our health care coverage and have served as the backbone of the drive for health care reform. 

 

Working people did not vote for a tax on their benefits.  85 percent of the American public oppose this tax.  With 160 million Americans currently with employer-sponsored health care, passing this tax will signal disaster for any politician or political party that advances this tax.

Please take a moment to contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress and urge them to vote no to a health care benefits tax that would unfairly target union members.

Letter from General President Sullivan and SMACNA to members of the U.S. Senate.

Letter signed by General President Sullivan and 30 other unions to the U.S. Senate.

Letter from the Unions of the Building and Construction Trades to the US Senate.