EDITORIAL: Titus, Democrats finally seeing light on Obamacare

Democrats believe Obamacare needs fixing after all.

They’ve figured out that the Affordable Care Act is not remotely affordable. Obamacare has increased health insurance costs for most Americans, not cut them. Far from allowing Americans to keep their existing health insurance and doctors, the law instead has wiped out the policies of millions of Americans and forced them to find new providers through worse coverage.

Of course, this is exactly what Republicans warned the law would do. Democrats, including Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., ignored those warnings and the opposition of most Americans and passed the bill anyway. And Democrats, including Rep. Titus, have defended the law ever since its 2010 enactment, criticizing the frequency of GOP votes to repair, roll back and repeal Obamacare.

So it was refreshing this week to see Democrats, still smarting from last year’s Obamacare-caused election shellacking, get behind their own Affordable Care Act repeal. A group of House Democrats, including Rep. Titus, wants to scrap Obamacare’s 40 percent “Cadillac tax,” which will hammer high-priced insurance plans starting in 2018. Democrats justified the tax five years ago by claiming it would affect only the wealthiest Americans. But Rep. Titus, along with Reps. Joe Courtney of Connecticut and Donald Norcross of New Jersey, say the tax is unfair because it also targets middle-class Americans who live in regions that have a high cost of living, such as the Northeast and West Coast, and, more importantly, union health plans.

“For companies that provide good insurance, for unions who have negotiated and accepted increases in health coverage instead of increases in wages, this comes back as a double hit on them,” Rep. Titus said at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Back in 2008, unions were critical in delivering the Democratic majorities that passed Obamacare, but unions didn’t turn out in 2014, partly because of the Democrats’ refusal to provide unions with exemptions from the law unions championed. Democrats need labor turnout in 2016 to keep the White House and have any chance of recapturing the Senate. Platinum union plans, negotiated through collective bargaining over many years, will take a huge hit because of the Cadillac tax.

The Cadillac tax, like almost all of the Affordable Care Act, is bad policy. Although Rep. Titus and company should be applauded for bringing this idea forward, Democrats should go further. The Affordable Care Act is broken and never should have been passed in the first place. Instead of providing unions with relief — and defunding part of the law — Democrats should work with majority Republicans to give all Americans a break and repeal the entire law, then start over on health care reform.