For organized labor, if there's anything better than a federal takeover of health insurance, it's a federal takeover of health insurance with a generous tax exemption for union-sponsored plans. Union leaders, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (see photo), this week gave the country a first-hand lesson on how to play behind-the-scenes political hardball. Yesterday, following a three-day marathon negotiating session, the nation's top labor officials announced they had reached an agreement to delay introduction of a federal excise tax on high-cost union-negotiated health insurance plans. While a number of Republicans are calling the deal a political giveaway, union leaders are spinning it as another example of doing right by working Americans.
It may be high irony, but capitalists over the decades all too often have been at odds with capitalism. That is, business organizations, for any number of reasons, have been prone to support ideas and policies whose intent is to bring free enterprise under social control. This syndrome is well and alive at a pair of prescription drug/biotechnology industry organizations: the 
