Organized labor deserves a lot of credit for its early efforts at getting health insurance and retirement benefits for workers. But labor also has a history of being slow to adapt to economic, social and political changes that challenge its mission. This has led to a slow erosion of labor union membership in the private sector. It has also resulted in attacks on the health and retirement benefits labor fought so hard for.

I applaud labor's support for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), and its wider support for universal health care. However, ironically, some of labor's biggest concerns these days involve provisions of Obamacare it sees as unfavorable to its members--the perceived threat to multiemployer health care plans and the "Cadillac tax" (an excise tax on high value health plans). Granted, these provisions are not favorable to unions as they currently operate. But that's the public policy point. Union friendly policy makers are less concerned with the role of unions and more concerned about health and retirement plan access and affordability for everyone. I'm concerned that labor's historical reality of focusing on its narrow interests and its members may cause it to miss out on an opportunity to help achieve the universal health and retirement benefits it claims it wants.

There are several health insurance and retirement plan issues unions can support, and that are growing in economic, social and political importance.

Health care price transparency. Doctors, hospitals and insurance companies have given little substantive attention to the need for providing prices for medical care to consumers. Even as consumers are forced to assume a greater share of the cost of care by way of large deductibles, the medical care establishment consistently pushes back on real price transparency.

• Labor unions should advocate for a change to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to mandate real medical price transparency by insurers and health care providers. ERISA is a federal law that sets standards for private health and retirement plans. Currently, many insurers provide limited tools that give questionable estimates of cost for some care. Providers offer even less assistance and routinely prescribe care without any consideration of its price and if a cheaper alternative is available.
• Labor unions should support the Obamacare Cadillac tax that enables millions of nonunion members to get health insurance.
• Labor unions should support the fiduciary standards proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) for brokers and insurance agents that sell retirement investment products.
• Labor unions should support federal and state efforts to create Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) like the federal myRA for workers with no workplace retirement plan. It should also support regulation and transparency of retirement plan fees, and other initiatives that look to provide risk-free retirement savings.

Tags: obamacare, cadillac tax, price transparency, retirement plan fees