When is a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill not really about infrastructure? How about when $400 billion would go to expand Medicaid payments for home healthcare, with much of that padding the rolls of the Service Employees International Union? That not-so-little detail is one of the line items the media don't want to cover in President Biden's latest spending blowout.
Mr. Biden wants to spend $400 billion to expand Medicaid in-home and "Community-based" care, increasing annual spending by 50%. The fine print of his proposal says his home-care plan would "Create good middle-class jobs with a free and fair choice to join a union ... and the ability to collectively bargain." This is where the SEIU comes in.
The union has been able to exploit Medicaid home-care programs to expand its membership with help from state Democratic lawmakers.
Since Medicaid pays for home care, Democratic states have deemed them public employees and designated the SEIU as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining.
The union then bargains with the same politicians the union supports in elections to deduct member dues automatically from home-worker Medicaid payments.
Democratic states and the SEIU have made it hard for caregivers to opt out of the union.
Last September the SEIU, Healthcare Illinois and Indiana settled a lawsuit brought by an Illinois home-care worker who said the union kept deducting dues from her Medicaid payments despite two requests to stop.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-seiu-as-infrastructure-11617563096?mod=hp_opin_pos_2
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