OUTRAGEOUS: HIDDEN UNION BAILOUT IN HEALTH CARE BILL

Did the United Auto Workers know when they negotiated concessions on their VEBA in exchange for ownership in General Motors and Chrysler that the their friends in Congress and the Obama Administration would make it up to them with the health care bill?

Bloomberg has uncovered a portion of the health care bill that is truly a sweetheart deal for the unions and provides an even bigger bailout to the United Auto workers. And, in so doing, may have uncovered one of the greatest swindles of all time in the making about to be committed by a government on its people.

Legislation overhauling U.S. health care includes $10 billion to pay some of the most expensive medical costs for millions of autoworkers, steelworkers, schoolteachers and other early retirees with coverage.

The provision, embedded in legislation passed in July by House and Senate committees, may help offset health-care concessions made earlier this year by the United Auto Workers as part of a government rescue of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC and related cost-cutting at Ford Motor Co.

The UAW cited the provision in an e-mail this week urging its members to support a health-care overhaul, President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

This may help explain a large part of the union astroturfing going on at town hall meetings.

The UAW agreed during the first half of this year to let GM, Ford and Chrysler forestall about $21 billion in cash contributions to union-run retiree health-care funds in exchange for equity and future payments. Thousands of UAW members also agreed to retire early in the restructuring.

In the e-mail Aug. 17 urging support of a health-care revamp, the UAW said the plan would “provide assistance to employers and Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations, to help them continue coverage for early retirees.”

A UNION SWINDLE?

Earlier this year, as the UAW negotiated to swap GM and Chrylser stock in exchange for forestalling the $21 billion in payments to its VEBA, did the UAW bosses (who contributed $5 million to elect Barack Obama) already know that they were getting a deal that would later be covered by the health care package?

If the UAW bosses knew that they would get 80 cents on the dollar back through health care legislation passed later in the year in exchange for partial ownership of two America auto companies (which the union helped drag down), this may become one of the greatest frauds ever committed by a government on its people.

This would mean that the Executive Branch the United States government helped orchestrate the takeover of not one but two private enterprises and literally gave those companies' stocks to one of its primary backers (the UAW) with the full knowledge that later this year the Legislative Branch of the United States government would attempt to pass a bill to reimburse the UAW.

To read the entire Bloomberg story, go here.