Does GOP hate Obamacare or Unions more?

The post title here is rhetorical. Conservative Republicans hate both with equal fervor. But it is interesting to watch them twist themselves into knots with the Obama administration's move last week to deny a waiver sought by labor unions to cover multi-employer health plans common in some industries.

First, Republicans praised unions for criticizing the Affordable Care Act:

“It’s encouraging to see those who strongly endorsed the health care law finally recognize its fundamental problems,” the GOP-led House Education and Workforce Committee said in a statement Thursday.

Then they immediately made hay bashing unions again:

And even if the administration isn’t signaling that it’s going to respond to union demands — Republicans are moving to preempt any such accommodation.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has introduced the Union Bailout Prevention Act and filed it as an amendment to the energy bill the Senate is debating. By Thursday, he had 10 co-sponsors.

“The Republicans are perfectly happy to crow about how the unions hate the law too, but hell will freeze over before they agree to do” anything legislatively to address their concerns, [Washington & Lee University Professor Tim] Jost said.

Sigh.

My personal favorite commentary was this rather unhinged reaction by Aik Roy, allegedly one of the smarter conservative commentators on health care. He's does an about face from (incorrectly) hyperventilating that ACA exchanges will lead to rate shocks people paying much more for insurance to crowing about how workers will get better insurance and lead to the end of unions in the United States.

Why?

Well, because government-sponsored health insurance remove union's role in managing health care and show workers that unions are unnecessary:

The great irony—one that union leaders are only now starting to recognize—is that by [backing universal health insurance], they’ve accelerated their own demise, at least in the private sector. Today, less than 7 percent of American private-sector workers are unionized. That number will continue to decline as workers realize they don’t need unions for their health benefits. The labor movement will increasingly become comprised of public-sector unions, giving it a far different character than it has today.

Most importantly, workers will benefit from this change. Instead of paying a big chunk of their wages to labor unions and insurance companies, they’ll be able to keep those wages for themselves.

But we can test this hypothesis. According to Roy's logic, countries with universal government-sponsored health insurance -- especially single-payer systems -- should cut unions out of the system. Without health insurance to dangle in front of their members, unions should then whither away and these countries should have low union densities.

Do Roy's contentions hold up?  Not so much.  According to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 23.5 percent of the U.S. work force was unionized in 1970. In 2003, that had dropped to 12.4 percent, a decline of 47 percent. In contrast, Canada with its universal health insurance went from a union density of  31.8 percent to 28.4 percent, a decline of 10.7 percent. The average European Union country dropped from 37.8 percent to 26 percent - a decline of 32 percent. (See page 8 of the study)

Not only are the absolute levels of union membership higher in countries with universal healthcare, but their decline have been slower than in the United States. Sorry Aivk, thanks for playing.

Roy is likely to get his wish of weaker unions. But it has nothing to do with universal health insurance. The long shadow of the Taft-Hartley law, the destruction of traditionally unionized manufacturing industries, and state governments run by vandals have done a quite effective job of destroying organized labor and eroding workers living standards over the last four decades.