Richard Mayhew, the pseudonymous health insurance expert blogging at balloon-juice.com (and a must-read on insurance issues), points us to a subtle benefit provided to unionized workers by the Affordable Care Act: it gives them more leverage in contract negotiations with employers.
That's because it gives employees a backstop against the employers' withdrawal of health insurance during a strike.
Here's how that works. The goal of each side in a strike is to impose the maximum economic hardship on the other. For employers, it's the loss of business; for employees, the loss of wages and benefits.