Campaign Action
One of the most impressive bits about the Republican push to defund Obamacare and thoroughly gut Medicaid is their insistence on doing so despite furious opposition from doctors, medical groups, patients groups, the AARP, and oh-by-the-way the American voting public, and by a very wide margin. Everyone aside from Republican leadership and conservative anti-government groups recognizes that the Republican "plan" will decimate the insurance markets, leave millions uninsured, toss current Medicaid recipients off the rolls, and get people killed. For a tax cut. That's the only upside: Some rich folks get a tax cut.
But that doesn't mean every American interest group is against it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is collecting support from all sorts of business interests who don't care what the medical industry says, they support the Republican plan to "protect the employer-sponsored system" regardless. Shall we take a look?
There's the Air Conditioning Contractors of America. It's unclear what their motive is, since people paying $10,000 more per year for health insurance are going to be buying considerably fewer air conditioners. There's the Auto Care Association, and the Food Marketing Institute. The National Restaurant Association and National Retail Association want this thing done. And, notably, there are multiple construction associations—the National Association of Home Builders thinks laborers in the dangerous industry could use less insurance, thank you very much—and the motives of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America are, we presume, self-evident.
Of the 30-ish supporting groups, what stands out the most? That other than the insurance agents themselves, nearly all the groups who’ve signed on are in industries famous for treating their employees like absolute crap. The International Franchise Association, Retail and Restaurant and Club associations, the Wholesaler-Distributors—these are all industries that have been battling tooth and nail to keep employee wages as close to the poverty line as possible, to provide little to no voluntary benefits, and wherever possible to treat laborers as "contractors" rather than employees in order to block them from getting what few benefits would otherwise be required by law.
By gum, they are fans of this new Republican plan to cheapen coverage by allowing them to buy insurance for their employees that covers fewer conditions, comes with lifetime limit caps, and which their laborers will still thank their lucky stars to have because if they quit their jobs, they might find themselves locked out of any health insurance altogether for the next half-year.
Of course they are.