White House Denies Labor’s Request For Obamacare Waiver

U.S. President Barack Obama gestures during his press conference with the Swedish prime minister at the chancellery Rosenbad in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday Sept. 4, 2013.
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The Obama administration has denied a request put forth by three of the nation’s largest and most powerful unions to be exempt from Affordable Care Act regulations, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reported Friday.

The administration “does not see a legal way for individuals in multiemployer group health plans to receive individual market tax credits as well as the favorable tax treatment associated with employer-provided health insurance at the same time,” a senior administration official told the Post.

Representatives from the Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers, wrote Congressional leaders in July with concerns that Obamacare would upend multi-employer health plans, which cover many of their members.

“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them,” they wrote in a letter. “Sadly, that promise is under threat…We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”

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