The House health-care bill has tossed a lifeline to union health-care plans, a lifeline that comes fast on the heels of another victory for the unions in health-care reform.

Unions have successfully beaten back a Congressional effort to level a 40% excise tax on "Cadillac plans," the insurance plans that cover more medical costs and which are mostly won by unions in exchange for lower wages.

The unions forced Congress to back down on the excise tax by using this line of argument: taxing Cadillac plans would effectively be a tax on the middle class, forcing President Obama to break his campaign pledge to not raise taxes on the middle class.

Instead, Congress has proposed slapping higher Medicare taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, as a House bill proposes.

There are other union lifelines in the House health care bill (HR 3962), which contains provisions designed to benefit retirees, primarily union workers who receive health-care coverage through their employers:

- Section 110 prohibits group health plans from cutting a retiree's health benefits post-retirement, particularly valuable for union workers. The retiree's portion of insurance premiums may not increase or the value of the coverage may not decrease more than 5% unless the same changes are made to active employees;

- Section 111 creates a $10 billon fund that lasts from 2010 to 2013 to finance a temporary reinsurance program to help offset the costs of health benefits for retirees age 55-64 (effective 90 days after enactment). The program will reimburse employers 80 cents on the dollar for retiree claims between $15,000 and $90,000. Payments from the reinsurance program can only be used to reduce the costs borne by the enrollees and dependents. Union workers make up a large percentage of enrollees in retiree health care plans.

In August 2009, Bloombergreported that "the UAW cited the [$10 billion] provision in an e-mail this week urging its members to support a health-care overhaul….  In the e-mail Aug. 17 urging support of a health-care revamp, the UAW said the plan would 'provide assistance to employers and Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations (VEBAs), to help them continue coverage for early retirees.'" VEBAs are funds set up to pay exclusively for future health-care coverage.

Worth noting: These are the same UAW VEBAs that got 17.5% of GM and 55% of Chrysler in the Obama-directed bankruptcy deals.  Apparently, despite being given significant stakes in car companies, the UAW's VEBA still needs another government handout, notes Fox News analyst James Farrell.

The reform clause benefiting unionized workers is a giveback to unions who agreed to health-care cuts banged out earlier this year by the UAW when the government rescued GM and Chrysler.

Unions shelled out $52 million in campaign donations to President Obama, including $5 million from the UAW, according to reports citing OpenSecrets.org, a Washington-based organization that tracks campaign spending.

The legislation would also benefit private sector workers, although a large percentage of retiree health plans have union workers as enrollees.

Reports indicate the three automakers originally agreed in 2007 to contribute about $54 billion to fund the UAW's VEBAs, in exchange for agreeing to trim as much as $7 billion in retiree health-care costs annually and about $87 billion in future obligations.

The UAW members agreed to let GM, Chrysler and Ford (F) all cut those contributions, including swapping about $21 billion that was supposed to be paid in cash for equity or later payments, as financial conditions worsened, Bloomberg notes. In return, UAW VEBAs also got 17.5% ownership of GM and 55% of Chrysler.