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Obamacare: Survival of the well-connected?
The Pottstown Mercury ^ | May 25, 2011 | Professor Ralph R. Reiland, guest columnist

Posted on 05/25/2011 3:45:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got all wound up in March 2010 about the passage of ObamaCare and told the assembled conventioneers at the National Association of Counties that the bill's reforms were going to make health care in America "very, very exciting?"

To lift "the fog of controversy" off the legislation, all Congress had to do, she explained, was "pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it."

None of us, in short, were supposed to play any part. Pelosi, Barack Obama and Harry Reid had it all figured out, just as Hillary Clinton mistakenly thought she had it all figured out 16 years earlier. The central planners were saying that we didn't need to know what was in the legislation before it was passed and, hence, there was no reason for us to bother our members of Congress with our factless opinions.

In fact, it was the same for the members of Congress. The marching order from the Obama administration was to pass the legislation posthaste without reading it, without finding out "what's in it." There was no time allocated to read the 1,017 pages of Washington doublespeak and bureaucratic legalese in the bill. Like in the children's game, we were all to play Follow the Leader. No one needed to look inside the bill in order to buy it.

That used to be called "a pig in a poke," an expression that warned against buying something when the content was concealed. The phrase is rooted in a time when buyers at farmers markets were cautioned to check inside the pokes, or sacks, lest they might get home and find that the seller had sneakily dropped a worthless cat into a sack instead of a costly suckling pig.

As it's turned out, no small number of businesses in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district have opened the poke and discovered that it's filled with some real rubbish. Their response, increasingly, is "No thanks."

"Pelosi's district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of (ObamaCare) waivers nationwide," waivers providing a yearlong pass from ObamaCare, reported Matthew Boyle in The Daily Caller last week. "Of the 204 new ObamaCare waivers the Obama administration approved in April," Boyle reported, "38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's Northern California district."

Among waiver recipients is Infusion Lounge, a self-described "sophisticated night life destination," perfect for "dancing hipsters" with its "Asian inspired sub-rosa lounge fashioned by Hong Kong's hottest designer, Kinney Chan."

Boboquivari's restaurant, with its $59 porterhouses, also got a waiver, said Boyle, along with Cafe des Amis and its "timeless Parisian style," plus the fancy four-star Campton Place hotel and the four-diamond Hotel Nikko.

At Boboquivari's, add a soup appetizer, a house salad, a baked potato and a glass of Groth cabernet and the tab increases, respectively, by $9, $9, $9 and $20, taking the $59 steak to $106. Add cheesecake at $8 a slice and you're at $114. Finish up in style with a small glass of Chateau d'yquem dessert wine and your tab for one person jumps another $69 to $183, not counting tax and tip.

Still, even with all this high-end money rolling in, it appears that Boboquivari's found ObamaCare to be more unaffordable than "exciting."

The question: If these San Francisco hot spots can't afford to pay for ObamaCare, how is a truck stop in Pennsylvania selling trucker-sized hot-turkey sandwiches at $7.95, a big pile of mashed potatoes included, supposed to survive?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Health/Medicine; Politics
KEYWORDS: california; congress; corruption; democrats; economy; fraud; obama; obamacare; pelosi; socialistdemocrats; socialisthealthcare
They're not.
1 posted on 05/25/2011 3:45:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: 2ndDivisionVet

You have to give the Baraqqis credit.
They’ve taken the “Chicago Way” to Wash DC in fine style.


3 posted on 05/25/2011 4:06:43 PM PDT by nascarnation
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’ve become more and more convinced that the problem is the media. In a normal society none of this crap would have ever happened. The media would have pointed out all the downsides and the congresscritters wouldn’t have touched that crap with a 20 foot pole.

The fact that we have a media that not only refuses to do its job of telling people the truth but actively lies to support its own agenda - that’s what’s gotten us where we are now.

There are other causes to be sure - but the media is the biggest problem. I wonder what can be done to fix this - it’s destroying the country.


4 posted on 05/25/2011 4:11:59 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (Welcome to the USA - where every day is Backwards Day!)
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
yes...the media is the problem....if its not a crisis that the SCM wants, then its not reported...

we're not hearing about the homeless or the unemployed or the misery index nor the "Doomsday" clock....

used to be the reporters were our saviours...investigating and reporting on all the goings on.....

look what we have now....

5 posted on 05/25/2011 4:56:12 PM PDT by cherry
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To: cherry

Rush has gotten a lot of mileage out of the term SCM or State Controlled Media - I think a good case could be made for the converse - Media Controlled State. An interesting question would be how could you formally distinguish between those two possibilities?


6 posted on 05/25/2011 5:39:25 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (Welcome to the USA - where every day is Backwards Day!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Elites:

Members of the Communist Party in the old USSR didn’t have to wait in line for their bread either...


7 posted on 05/25/2011 5:42:57 PM PDT by GOPJ (http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2009/05/terrifying-brilliance-of-islam.html)
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