[UPDATE] Cancer, Obamacare Victim at Center of Political Storm

Gary Peters (AP)

 Julie Boonstra, a cancer patient who was kicked of off her health plan due to Obamacare, lashed out at Rep. Gary Peters (D., Mich.) on Saturday after lawyers for his campaign demanded that Michigan broadcasters cease airing ads featuring her story.

Boonstra, a Michigan resident, was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. She was recently kicked off of her healthcare plan due to regulations passed as part of President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Peters voted in favor of.

After relating her story publicly in an ad produced by the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), Peters dispatched lawyers to prevent the spot from running on local television stations.

Boonstra, who says she is now struggling to pay out of pocket for her rising healthcare costs, told the Washington Free Beacon she is stunned by Peters’ efforts to censor her story.

“I’m appalled. I’m appalled as a mom, as a woman, and as a cancer patient, as someone living with cancer … who has stood before this nation to say, ‘I cannot afford that out of pocket expense,’” said Boonstra, who said she was given a 20 percent chance of surviving her disease. “As a Michigan resident, to silence my voice, I’m absolutely appalled.”

Peters, who is running for a seat in the Senate, instructed his legal council earlier this week to demand that stations stop running the AFP ad until additional evidence of the cancer victim’s claims could be produced.

“For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should immediately require AFP to provide the factual documentation for its claims if you are going to continue airing this advertising,” read the letter from Peters’ lawyers.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading.....

Detroit: Riding the Motor City Struggle Bus

DETROIT — I came to Detroit expecting a wasteland. Instead, I met a bunch of nice people and ate hot dogs.

Detroit declared bankruptcy this month, taking the dubious honor of becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. The city is $18 billion in the hole.

News stories described an empty town, teetering on the edge of anarchy. A place where most of the good things are gone, and what’s left is about to be auctioned off. A place where the last person out won’t have to worry about turning off the lights, because the lights haven’t worked in years.

Yet everywhere I went I encountered people with unflappable civic pride, people starting businesses and saying in the face of everything that Detroit was worth saving and will be saved.

“Detroit’s not dead,” a heavily tattooed 24-year-old woman told me over beers in a downtown bar. “It’s just riding the struggle bus.”

Tuesday

I went out for lunch Tuesday afternoon with a friend in Corktown. One of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods, Corktown is also one of its recent success stories. The main drag along Michigan Avenue is lined with hip restaurants, bars, and coffee shops painted in bright colors.

The scene would not have looked out of place in Brooklyn. Behind us, though, loomed the abandoned, 18-story-tall hulk of Michigan Central Station. Estimates of the cost to restore the station run as high as $300 million. The Atlantic recently called it “the face of American ruin porn.” Whatever floats your boat.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading....

LABOR UNIONS HAVE SOME WILD IDEAS ABOUT ‘WORK’

MIAMI – Defending workers’ rights is a noble mission.  But sometimes labor unions take it too far.  Here are some of our favorite examples of labor union contracts “gone wild.”

1) Three strikes and you’re still not out.

Believe it or not, an overly generous clause slipped into the teacher Master Agreement in 1997, basically states that Bay City School Teachers (Michigan) can be caught drunk at work up to five times before they get sacked.

In Florida, a teacher who showed up to class plastered and then started “dirty dancing” with her students may end up teaching again, thanks to her union’s excellent negotiating skills.

Bay City School teachers (again in Michigan) managed to negotiate a union contract where they could be caught in possession of, or under the influence of, drugs  three times before they lost their job.

2). No shows at work

Dozens of Miami-Dade County employees often don’t bother to show up for work, and instead, opt to spend their time working as union reps, on the taxpayers’ dime. County Commissioner Esteban Bovo told Florida Watchdog this is costing taxpayers anywhere from $12 million to $24 million annually.

3). A gamble where everyone wins

Martin Mulhall, a groundkeeper for Mardi Gras Gaming in Hallandale Beach, Fla., alleged the Florida casino traded the personal information of nonunion employees to UNITE-HERE, a hospitality union, in exchange for the union’s endorsement of a bill that would expand gambling in the state.

Via: Human Events

Continue Reading...

The Pension Issue – Everywhere

Two stories yesterday thrust pension reform in the front of the political news. In Michigan, a judge declared that Detroit could consider bankruptcy to deal with its debt crisis and that public pension obligations can be treated like any other contract under bankruptcy law. In Illinois, the state legislature passed a public pension reform that supporters say will save $160 billion and fund the retirement system over 30 years by reducing benefits for workers and retirees.

Both actions await the inevitable lawsuits promised by the public employee unions that don’t want to see members’ benefits reduced. Both stories have meaning to California cities that are struggling with fiscal problems that are wrapped around pension and health care liabilities.

Let’s state here that no one wants to see pensioners lose income they expected. That goes for public workers as well as citizens on Social Security who could see benefits cut in the not-too-distant future if the current gap between available revenue and payments due is not altered.

Saying that, something has to be done to avert the city bankruptcies and everything is on the table.

The judge making the Detroit bankruptcy decision clearly stated that, “it has long been understood that bankruptcy law entails the impairment of contracts.” That argument is at issue in the San Bernardino bankruptcy debate and could arise again in Stockton. Other California cities facing difficult fiscal conditions due to heavy pension burdens will take note.

The pension decision in Detroit will now become front and center as city officials sit down with union leaders to discuss resolutions to budget problems. The decision also gives a boost to San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s effort to find resolution on the pension issues that are threatening the budget in his city and cities across the state.

Reed’s proposed ballot initiative would give local governments more power to negotiate reductions in pension benefits. He has reached out to unions in an effort to find a solution to the pension crisis and avoid a war over the initiative. The unions responded by rebuffing Reed’s overture unless he drops his initiative plan.

In light of the decision coming out of Detroit on bankruptcy and public pensions, perhaps public employee unions should reconsider and accept Reed’s invitation to at least attempt to find common ground.

Via: California Political Review

Continue Reading....

Obama administration knew of key Obamacare delay in August, emails say

House Republicans released emails Friday that suggest the Obama administration knew as early as August that the small-business exchange tied to Obamacare would not be ready on time.

“Despite this knowledge, the Obama administration waited to finalize the delay until November 27, as Americans across the country were off celebrating Thanksgiving with their loved ones,” the Energy and Commerce Committee said in a press release.

The emails from between July 26 and Aug. 13 suggested the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services knew the federal insurance marketplace, or SHOP, that assists firms of less than 50 workers would not be available until mid-November at best. But they said at the time it would be ready Oct. 1 and did not announce any type of delay until late September.

One email from the lead vendor, CGI Federal, suggested a timeline that started with webinars on Oct. 1 and ended with the SHOP portal going live on Nov. 15.

“Can we sign this with blood?” Henry Chao, the project manager at CMS, wrote back.

Last week, the administration announced a one-year delay of the SHOP feature.

“As the paper trail broadens, we see more and more evidence that the administration was fully aware its signature health care law was not ready for prime time,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Repbulican, said. “The documents we are now reviewing tell a much, much different story than what officials testified to Congress.”

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading....

GOP Launches Major Push to Capture Blue State Senate Seats

Republicans are targeting blue states with competitive races in an effort to win back a majority in the Senate, Politico reports. 

The GOP currently holds 45 seats in the Senate to the Democrats' 55, so it needs to win only six of those elections. Seven states currently represented by Democrats were carried by Mitt Romney in 2012, but Republicans want to increase their chances, so they are also targeting other close elections in purple states, and even some blue ones.

Republicans hope to capitalize on anti-Obamacare sentiment as the program has suffered glitches in its website and in trust in a White House that promised people they could keep their insurance and that premiums would not rise.

Even if a GOP hoped-for backlash against Obamacare doesn't pan out, Politico notes that Democrats could be forced to pull money from bigger races to spend money on less-consequential contests.

Republicans already hold a majority in the House of Representatives.

New York Times statistician Nate Silver has been predicting a possible GOP turnover of the Senate since early this year. Silver's predictions were made months before the disastrous rollout of Obamacare. 

Among the states Politico sees as most likely GOP prospects are Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon and Hawaii.

With Sen. Carl Levin retiring in Michigan, Republicans there have rallied behind state Sen. Terri Lynn Land. In Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin also announced his retirement. No clear leader has emerged there.

In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen won in 2008 with only 52 percent. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has now moved his primary residence to the Granite State and has been toying with challenging Shaheen.

Via: Newsmax
Continue Reading.....