RUSH: The White House admits to having strategy problems on health care. Rahm Emanuel says ‘the message is not getting through.’ The reason the message isn’t getting through is because the facts are. The facts are getting through, and the facts are obscuring the message. Here’s Richard Trumka, National Press Club, AFL-CIO yesterday.
TRUMKA: Instead of taxing the rich, the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers’ health plans. Not just union members’ health care plans. This is a policy designed to benefit elites — in this case, insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and irresponsible employers — at the expense of the broader public.
RUSH: Uh-huh.
TRUMKA: I can assure you —
RUSH: Yyyyyeah.
TRUMKA: — that the labor movement —
RUSH: Yeah.
TRUMKA: — is fighting everything with what we’ve got to win health care reform that is worthy of the support of working men and working women.
CROWD: (applause)
RUSH: He doesn’t want…
CROWD: (applause)
RUSH: He doesn’t…
CROWD: (applause)
RUSH: Shut the applause down! He doesn’t want a tax on these ‘Cadillac’ health care plans. He wants taxes on the rich. They’re having problems out there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Trumka, he doesn’t want taxes on these ‘Cadillac health care plans,’ and Obama told union leaders at a White House meeting that he’s committed to taxing these health care plans, but he’s going to work with the union guys to make it work for working families. So… (laughing) That’s why Trumka went out to the Press Club and was still angry, when Obama signals flexibility, it means you better be, not him.