Not even a Jackson on the nightstand

Trumka will have to get his own cab fare home:

The Obama administration on Friday told labor union leaders that their health plans would not be eligible for tax subsidies under Obamacare next year.

A White House official said the Treasury Department has concluded that such an exemption is not possible under the Affordable Care Act. The labor unions have been asking that their union plans, known as Taft-Hartley plans, be eligible for premium subsidies the way plans on the new insurance exchange will be.

This was a big deal for the unions, because the health insurance plans they have been offering for years are now going to be a whole lot more expensive.

Labor officials worry that the lack of subsides for those multi-employer Taft-Hartley health care plans could encourage employers to move unionized employees onto the public exchanges created by the new law. They also worry that the law could encourage employers to move some full-time employees to part-time to avoid having to provide health insurance.

As a result of the disagreement over the implementation of the health care law, union officials and their rank-and-file members have been among the most vocal critics of the Affordable Care Act — Obama’s signature domestic achievement — in recent weeks. Before the law’s passage, unions were vocal supporters.

The disagreement has grown increasingly acrid over the summer.

Hope and change! Oh, they're bitter, too:

The nation’s largest labor group — the AFL-CIO — concluded its annual meeting in Los Angeles earlier this week by strongly condemning the law in a statement that said it was “highly disruptive” to union benefits.

“On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and well-being of our members, along with millions of other hardworking Americans,” the Teamsters, UFCW and UNITE HERE wrote in a joint letter this summer.

Man, do you believe it? Obamacare is like a giant can of Raid; it will kill them dead! I suppose the unions don't want their members to be part of the clusterfark, but they gotta understand what this has always been about -- Obamacare isn't supposed to work. It's supposed to fail, because its failure is supposed to lead us to the final goal, which is a single payer system. And if that means serving a few AFL-CIO omelettes along the way, well, you knew Obama's nature when you agreed to carry him over the river there, froggy.

If I were the AFL-CIO, I'd see if they could get Putin to help them out.