Health Care Not the Only Benefit at Risk
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
August 3, 2009
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Alexa Marrero
((202) 225-4527)
Will they or won’t they?
That was the question on Capitol Hill last week as Democrats wrestled with their self-imposed deadline to rush a radical overhaul of our nation’s health care system through both chambers before the month-long August recess started. In the end, that question remained unanswered, with Democrats in both the House and Senate facing stiff opposition to their plan to put bureaucrats in charge of health care decisions best left to patients and doctors. Unfortunately, all the talk about employer-provided health care benefits may have overshadowed another issue important to working families: their pension benefits. Pension benefits may not be as headline-grabbing as health care. But Democrats' proposed "remedy" could be just as devastating to the economy. The Wall Street Journal gives the details here:
Editorial, “Union Pensions in the Red,” Wall Street Journal, 07.26.09 Indeed they should. As some media outlets have reported, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act could force businesses – through its controversial binding arbitration requirements – to pick up the slack in paying a union’s underfunded pension plan. The fact that union pensions have little cash is a serious problem. But using the Employee Free Choice Act to fix it – with its terrible effects on jobs and the economy – would make the cure worse than the disease. # # # |