Senator Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, is calling on labor unions to join his effort to “provide relief” from Obamacare to all Americans.
Hatch extended the invitation in a letter to the heads of three major unions on Thursday, days after those same union leaders wrote Democratic leaders to express their significant concerns with President Obama’s signature health-care law. Absent considerable changes, the union bosses wrote, the law will “destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.”
Hatch concurred.
“I write to express my agreement with the concerns you have outlined in letters to the Obama Administration and Congress regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as the Affordable Care Act, which we all can agree is a title that does not ring true,” he told the presidents of UNITE HERE, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
“We know today that costs are skyrocketing and estimates on coverage continue to drop as confidence in the administration’s ability to get the health insurance exchanges up and running dwindles,” he added. “I hope you will accept my invitation to provide relief from the law to all Americans and ensure that the law will no longer threaten access to insurance, increase costs, or deny individuals from keeping their existing health insurance plans as the President had promised.”
On Wednesday, the House approved one-year delays of the employer and individual mandate provisions in Obamacare, and Senate Republicans have called on Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) to hold votes on the measures. On Thursday, Obama administration officials warned that the state health-care exchanges, a cornerstone of the new law, might not be up and running on time, the latest sign that Obamacare implementation is in disarray.
Full text of the letter here.