Life was hard for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and husband Todd as they eked out a living when they first entered the workforce. That is, until at least one of them landed a union job that ensured they'd have health care coverage they could afford, the AFL-CIO's Tula Connell reports.
Yep. The Republican vice presidential nominee, whose running mate, Sen. John McCain, has indicated in multiple Senate votes how much he despises unionization, not only has benefited from the good wages and benefits of union membership, she's talking about it publicly. From Jonathan Martin at Politico:
"We've gone through periods of our life here with paying out of pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs," Palin explained to conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. "Early on in our marriage, we didn't have health insurance, and we had to either make the choice of paying out of pocket for catastrophic coverage or just crossing our fingers, hoping that nobody would get hurt, nobody would get sick."
Not the best timing for the veep wannabe. This week, we at the AFL-CIO are launching another in our series of political mailings to union members -- and this one describes McCain's plans to tax workers' employer-based health care that could put 158 million of us at risk of losing our coverage.
McCain says his plan would include a tax credit for purchasing health coverage from private insurers -- but doesn't say the credit isn't sufficient to cover the cost of the average health plan, and it won't keep up with rising costs.
Further, the McScheme would:
Deny Coverage. McCain would allow insurance companies to deny_coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The McCain plan also would put important medical procedures, like cancer screenings, at risk by allowing insurance companies to avoid state coverage requirements.
Destroy Medicare. McCain wants to privatize Medicare -- just like the plan he's proposed for Social Security. In Congress, he voted for steep increases in Medicare premiums and tried to cut billions from the Medicare budget.
As UAW member Dave Fecke states on the mailer:
McCain practically had free health care his whole life. He doesn't understand how hard it would be for my family to pay more.
Palin describes her fear of living without health care in the same way as so many people who can't afford to get sick. But her feel-good rhetoric is a cynical attempt to manipulate the public from someone whose "your-on-your-own" view of the world likely would result in millions more of us "crossing our fingers" and hoping we don't get sick or hurt.
Martin at Politico admits he can't find out what union job Palin ever held. In fact, no one knows. But the Palin-McCain ticket's public drumbeat about the benefits of union membership and Palin's rocky claims for identification with a political constituency -- union members -- whom the ticket desperately needs to win, mocks our thirst for honest public debate.
Less well known than Palin's claim is McCain crossing a picket line to appear on the "Tonight Show," voting to prohibit firefighters and police officers from winning a union voice on the job and voting for a bill that attempted to eliminate unions.
So, a note to Gwen Ifill: At tonight's vice presidential debate, ask Palin whether she supports the Employee Free Choice Act, which the union movement backs to give workers seeking good union wages and benefits a fair chance to get them. (McCain voted against it.)
And ask her if she agrees with a McCain adviser who said as far as health care coverage goes, there's no such thing as being uninsured -- because we can pretend the uninsured don't exist.
That's an idea that would save a lot of finger-crossing -- including Palin's.
(The preceding column by Tula Connell appeared on the Web site blog.aflcio.org on October 2, 2008.)
