It amazes me that union leadership will cling to the health care scare and immortalize Obama as someone who "cares" about working men and women.  I have an MA in Industrial Relations and a BA in Labor Economics--and Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat I voted for.  Wake up "working America'--today a minority of "workers" belong to FDR industrial unions.  Union membership has only grown in the public sectors including teachers--but not in the "productivity" sectors of the economy--precisely because NAFTA in combination with inferior public school education and out of control union leadership--created the economic and legal environment for private sector companies to outsource production and avoid unions.  Repeat, it was the democratic administration who opened the floodgates to the global economy and cheap labor which Americans simply cannot compete with on their merits. Sad but true.

As an elected board of education member in my town, I voted to ask teacher to contribute more to their health insurance so the district could obtain insurance at a lower cost--but same coverage.  Brilliant union leadership rejected our offer--and instead fought to "get it all"--a healthy wage increase and "free" health insurance--anything else was considered a give back.  Well surprise.  The school district is broke and new teachers will not be hired--many young ones will be laid off.  So much for greed.

Rank and file teachers-- and that goes for all union members --would be well served to watch the union leadership's political behavior--spending union dues on dubious candidates.  Fine, congratulate yourselves on getting Obama elected--but he will ruin our economy.  You can only blame Bush so long...and it will become obvious that Obama will do worse--from health care to Afghanistan...he will sink from the unpopularity of Jimmy Carter to the level of Lyndon Johnson--domestic disaster and war time disaster simultaneously.

The unions would be better served attacking the trial lawyers (those smarty pants who went to law school instead of Ed school) and have succeeded in creating economic cancer in the health care system.  Instead of blaming Bush--blame the blood sucking trial lawyers for raising the cost of treatment (CYA testing) and mal practice insurance sky high--which in the end, is all paid for by patients--be they union or non-union members. There is only so much money to go around--and if the lawyers get more than their fair share (which should be virtually none) there is a lot less money to pay doctors...or teachers...for that matter.

It bears repeating.  Bill Clinton passed NAFTA (which I a firm Republican) believe has been detrimental to our American workers--But, NAFTA alone could not succeed in shipping jobs over seas if the US had a large supply of well educated workers.  While it's true, that many American engineers have been laid off--the ready supply of cheap engineering talent and articulate (and cheap) Indians in the tech sector allow companies of every national leadership to by-pass the American worker.

Tort Reform should be the basis--foundation of-healthcare reform. Amen.