Pirate's Cove

Why? The costs imposed by Obamacare

(Buzzfeed)  Contract negotiations are stalled for thousands of workers at casinos on the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas to the point where they may go on strike — and the sticking point is Obamacare.

On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks.

Rising health care costs due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act could put those benefits in jeopardy, the union says.

“The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare,” Donald “D” Taylor, president of Unite Here, the parent union of CU Local 226, told BuzzFeed in a statement. “Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won’t be true.”

What else is there to say about Obamacare that hasn’t been said before? It’s a terrible law that causes more problems than it solves, it causes employer costs to rise and there is only so much a company can eat, which means issues for the workers and/or passing the costs on to the consumers and/or cutting back on service. And this will only get worse once the illegally delayed employer mandate comes closer to implementation.