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WASHINGTON (UPI) -- AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka warned U.S. Senate Democratic leaders against including a tax on high-cost healthcare plans, calling it "bad policy."

Trumka said working families already having difficulty paying for health insurance should be saddled with higher healthcare costs in the form of a new tax, The Hill reported.

Under the Senate Finance Committee's bill, health plans costing more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families would be slapped with a 40 percent excise tax. Senate leaders indicated the threshold could be raised.

"Working families struggling to pay for healthcare should not be required to pay even more in the form of a new tax," said Trumka in a telephone conference call. "When you fail to force (insurance) companies to be competitive and employers to pay their fair share, you have to come up with money elsewhere."

"It's a bad policy, bad politics and totally unacceptable to put the cost of healthcare on the backs of working families," he said.

The AFL-CIO president, who took office in September, said that the opt-out public option in the Senate bill falls short of the "robust" public option the union supports. The robust option, supported by House liberals, would pay medical providers the same rates as Medicare plus an additional 5 percent.

"We cannot be in favor of reform for reform's sake. This is the moment to make sure that it's real," Trumka said. "The fight now is about what reform will look like."