Senator Franken Receives Response on Multi-Employer Health Care Plans

[Omaha Steve]

From email.

Senator Al Franken has been working incredibly hard to bring our concerns to Washington D.C., pushing the Administration to understand the importance of collectively bargained multi-employer plans.

On behalf of union members, he asked the Administration to acknowledge that employers will still have to honor their contractual obligations regarding the multi-employer or "Taft-Hartley plans" that union workers went to the bargaining table and negotiated for.

Senator Franken recently received a written response from the U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Perez. The letter reads, in part, “The Affordable Care Act, does not, as a matter of law, alter the contractual legal obligations employers have made in collectively bargaining to contribute to a Taft Hartley plan.”

Read the letter: http://www.mnaflcio.org/sites/mnaflcio.advantagelabs.com/files/TEP%20Letter%209.20.13.pdf

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Senator Franken has been personally covered by such a multi employer, Union based plan

for most of his adult life as a working writer and actor. So he knows.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Was there doubt about this? The issue unions have with the PPACA is a bit more complicated,

you can read about it here (it relates to the subsidies the PPACA offers not being available to
participants in the multi-employer plans):
http://www.labornotes.org/2013/03/union-health-plans-will-suffer-under-obamacare

[Omaha Steve]

3. Thanks for the info