WASHINGTON — They led the most powerful forces in healthcare -- the trade groups representing doctors, insurance companies, hospitals and drug makers. Any one of them could stall, if not derail, President Obama's hopes of overhauling the U.S. healthcare system.
Instead, they stood with Obama before TV cameras at the White House and pledged their cooperation. For Obama, the show of unity gave momentum to perhaps his most ambitious domestic goal.
But the moment was a victory, as well, for another man invited to the event that morning in May. Andy Stern heads the SEIU, the union that helped corral the industry groups, and his presence at the White House was a fresh sign of his formidable clout with Obama.
When the president met privately with the health industry leaders that day, Stern and a second Service Employees International Union official were the only labor representatives in the room.
In a fractious labor movement fraught with rivalries and mutual suspicion, Stern's close association with Obama has given him cachet that may prove important in the fierce competition to lure new members.
But Stern's access to the White House has also provoked jealousies. His opponents paint him as a polarizing figure that Obama elevates at his own peril.
The Obama-Stern relationship has emerged as one of the most curious within the young administration.
The SEIU spent $60 million to help elect Obama, according to the union. Stern said the group deployed 100,000 volunteers during the campaign, including 3,000 who worked on the election full time.
Now in the White House, Obama has continued to derive political benefits from the union. It was the SEIU's health chief, Dennis Rivera, who helped bring industry to the table to start talks on a healthcare overhaul.
With nearly 2 million members, the SEIU says it has people in 13 states whose senators are considered important targets in the lobbying effort behind the emerging Democratic healthcare bill. The union wants to coax those senators into voting for the bill.
Stern can boast that union officials are scattered throughout the Obama administration. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is a former executive at an SEIU local based in New York. No other union has placed anyone at such a high level in the White House.
Anna Burger, SEIU secretary-treasurer, was appointed to Obama's economic recovery board. And union associate counsel John Sullivan was named to the six-member Federal Election Commission.
