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Obama bringing health care message to union workers in Bristol

BRISTOL, Va. — President Barack Obama could very well have a receptive audience of workers listening to his health care reform message when he goes Krogering here on Wednesday.

Employees at the Kroger supermarket Obama will be visiting are represented by Local 400 of the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, said store manager Rick Caldwell.

“Kroger is a union company, it sure is,” Caldwell noted.

UFCW is a strong health care reform advocate and backs cost controls in the health insurance industry as well as Obama’s call for a public health insurance option.

The union, in a statement on its Web site (www.ufcw.org), said it does not support taxing health benefits.

UFCW also recently questioned Walmart’s announced support for “fair and broad” health insurance coverage mandates on employers.

“As a company that has had a significant role in fueling this nation’s health care crisis, I have serious questions about Walmart’s commitment to playing a constructive role in fashioning reform that, in fact, provides quality affordable care for all,” UFCW President Joseph Hansen said in a June 30 letter sent to Obama.

The union’s political action committee gave more than $1.8 million to House and Senate Democratic candidates in the 2008 federal election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.

UFCW Local 400 represents more than 40,000 workers in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the District of Columbia and Tennessee.

Only those with tickets will be allowed to participate in Wednesday’s Bristol meeting with Obama, and those tickets have all been reserved for Kroger employees.

The Bristol supermarket straddles the Tennessee-Virginia line and rests on the former Bristol Memorial Hospital location.

The 4:05 p.m. meeting, Caldwell said, will be held in the supermarket’s perishables section.

Because of Obama’s visit, Caldwell said the supermarket will be shut down to customers between noon and 6 p.m.

Caldwell declined a reporter’s request to talk to Kroger employees who will attend the event.

“We’re excited that he chose us and is going to be here,” Caldwell said of Obama. “We’re still working toward taking care of our regular business and getting prepared and ready for the president. ... We’re looking forward to it.”

While Obama continues on the stump in an attempt to push his reform plan through Congress before its August recess, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has begun a radio ad campaign soliciting votes against the plan from Tennessee’s Democratic congressmen.

The ad encourages people to call U.S. Reps. Lincoln Davis, Bart Gordon and John Tanner and tell them to “say no to this dangerous experiment.”

Davis, Gordon and Tanner are members of the fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democratic coalition of House members.

“If Barack Obama and the Democrats get their way, the federal government will make the decisions about your health care. And, their plan costs a trillion dollars we don’t have. You have to pay a new tax to keep your private insurance. It’s too much, too fast,” the RNC ad says of the reform plan.

For more information go to www.thomas.gov. The plan’s legislation is HR 3200.