CWA: Health Care Reform Must 'Make Employers Who Don't Pay, Pay'

There's a lot of momentum in CWA's campaign to block any tax on health care and instead to make sure that those employers who don't provide any health care to employees pay.

Meetings and calls from CWAers and others have so far resulted in 168 members of the House of Representatives signing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing any plans to tax health care.

The letter, drafted by Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), calls on Pelosi "to reject an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle class families."

CWA President Larry Cohen said "our front line message is this: don't tax our benefits and make those employers who don't pay, pay."

"It's absurd to make employers who already are paying pay even more by hitting them with a 40 percent excise tax, while not requiring anything from employers who don't provide health care to employees. This tax will cause even more cost shifting to workers," he said.  

All week long, CWA members have come to Washington, D.C. for meetings with their senators and representatives, made thousands of phone calls to congressional offices and sent personal letters that make the case for real health care reform.

CWA members also are working with Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jay Rockefeller, (D-WVa), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and others to build support among senators for a public health care option. So far, 26 senators have signed onto a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "The number one goal of health reform must be to look out for the best interests of the American people – patients and taxpayers alike – not the profit margins of insurance companies," the letter says.