New Chart Reveals the Impossible Complexity of Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Republicans of the Joint Economic Committee have come out with a chart that shows the shocking and just plain idiotic complexity that is Obamacare. (Download .pdf file)

Four months after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously declared “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” a congressional panel has released the first chart illustrating the 2,801 page health care law President Obama signed into law in March.

Developed by the Joint Economic Committee minority, led by U.S Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the detailed organization chart displays a bewildering array of new government agencies, regulations and mandates.

Sadly, Obamacare is so complex that even this chart can only show about 1/3 of the foolishness involved. There is so much intertwined, serpentine connections that there was no physical way to even get it all on one chart.


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New Chart Reveals the Impossible Complexity of Obamacare”


Tax Calculator Tells You What You’ll Pay With and W/O Bush Tax Cuts

-By Warner Todd Huston

We all know that time is running out for Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts and if it doesn’t do so we will all see our taxes go up. To help you figure out what your tax burden will be with and without the Bush tax cuts the folks at the Tax Foundation have created an excellent new “tax calculator” that will show you how much your tax burden will be for 2011. You can try the calculator out at: www.mytaxburden.org/

The calculator shows you what you’ll pay if the Bush tax cuts remain in place, what you’ll pay with them removed (as they are about to be), and what you’ll pay under Obama’s tax proposals.

You have to know your income for 2011 (or at least an estimate), your filing status, dependents, and all the usual basic info that affects your filing.

Obama is about to preside over a massive tax hike, folks. The Tax Foundation’s calculator will help you understand how it will affect you.
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Tax Calculator Tells You What You’ll Pay With and W/O Bush Tax Cuts”


Obama Forces Doctors to Snitch to Feds on Patient’s Weight

-By Warner Todd Huston

New federal regulations issued by Obama’s administration will require doctors to record their patient’s body mass index (BMI) ratio. No longer will your weight problems be a matter between you and your doctor. Thanks to Obama, now your doctor will be required by law to snitch to the feds on how fat you are.

Like most of what goes on in Washington, this new little regulation was stuck a bill otherwise wholly unconnected to healthcare, the stimulus billsection 301)

According to the government’s new HIT Standards (Health Information Technology), each patient’s BMI numbers will be recorded and must be available to the federal government on a national database exchange.
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Obama Forces Doctors to Snitch to Feds on Patient’s Weight”


Are We Headed Toward Another Revolution?

-By Warner Todd Huston

We see this sort of thing off and on as political eras wax and wane. The question of whether or not we are only just behind a new revolution starting up in the United States has been repeatedly asked almost since the instant the first one (or even the second one — the Civil War) came to a close.

But are we? Are we about to be plunged into a second revolution of some sort or another? And who will be on what side of this revolution? Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, asks this question in the recent issue of the American Spectator and I must say he presents compelling reasons why we might be headed for another revolution.

It’s all about “America’s Ruling Class,” says Codevilla. These elites have lost touch with America and are now solely interested in whats good for the ruling class and not whats good for America and it people.
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Are We Headed Toward Another Revolution?”


Obama Parody Brilliance: Same as it Ever Was… After the Oils Gone

This is some brilliant parody of the Talking Heads song “Same As It Ever Was.” This one lampoons Obama’s sad reaction to the Gulf oil spill.

Smashing work, from The PolitiZoid Channel.

They also gave us this one…

Love it.

(H/T HotAir.com and alhouse.blogspot.com)


Jury Damage Award Could Close Calif. Healthcare Facilities

-By Warner Todd Huston

When companies are found to have violated regulations that govern their industry, is it right that a jury of non-experts can award damages the amount of which will wipe the company off the face of the earth? That is a question that has been raised in a case recently decided against Skilled Healthcare LLC of California.

A class action lawsuit (lawsuit info here) brought by trial lawyers was filed late last year against Skilled Healthcare of California claiming that the company had violated state regulations that stipulates that nursing homes must maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient, per day (ppd). The lawsuit claimed that the nursing homes operated by Skilled Healthcare often did not meet the requirement.

Interestingly, there was never any claim from any patient that there’d been harmed or put in danger. Not a single patient claimed personal injury before these lawyers began to file their class action lawsuit.
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Jury Damage Award Could Close Calif. Healthcare Facilities”


Dan Patlak: Empowering the Taxpayers

From Dan Patlak for Cook County Board of Review…

In the spirit of empowering taxpayers, we have released the first in a series of “Property Tax Facts” videos. This video series compliments our website’s new “Education Center”, and answers commonly asked questions about Cook County Property Taxes. If you have a question about property taxes please visit our web site at www.ElectPatlak.com and click on Ask Dan.
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Dan Patlak: Empowering the Taxpayers”


Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama first became president and the left-wing Old Media universally indulged the claim that he was “just like FDR“? Of late the Old Media has backed off that hyperbolic statement, but at least in a single incident, Obama has proven indeed to be just like FDR. The similarity entails laws about which the two presidents lied to the public in order to sell them. And in both instances, the truth only came out in court.

For FDR it was Social Security. The Roosevelt Administration sold Social Security as an “insurance” program when it began to push for the policy. The truth is, of course, that Social security and its unemployment plan adjunct is in no way an insurance program. It is welfare pure and simple.

But FDR sold it as “insurance” anyway. In 1936, for instance, FDR sternly told an audience in Pennsylvania that it was an insurance program.
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Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch”


Unions Holding Up Cash for the Troops

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week the Washington Times had a story that should enrage every true American. The Democrat Congress is allowing Big Labor’s needs to come before the needs of our troops. The supplemental budget that Congress is considering is supposed to be about funding the troops and their efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Democrats are more interested in how many payoffs for Big Labor they can stuff into the thing then in funding the troops.

Like most supplementals, this bill began with a singular purpose: paying war expenses. It since has been larded with billions in wasteful projects and programs designed to attract the vote of the left-of-center members with no fondness for the military. Among the House-approved giveaways are a $10 billion bailout for big-spending local governments, loan guarantees worth $9 billion for purported renewable energy, $3 billion for black farmers and American Indians who sued the government and $1 billion for summertime “youth activities.”

Even worse is the language to nationalize our first responders, policemen, and firemen. (As we talked about HERE)
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Unions Holding Up Cash for the Troops”


Noblesse Oblige: Obama’s Dog Gets Own Plane on Vacation Trip

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Morning Sentinel, a small paper from the state of Maine, has a travelogue story of the Obama’s vacation in and about Maine today. It has a very interesting little tidbit in it that should enrage every American. It is something that really shows Barack Obama’s arrogance and his obviously assumed air of noblesse oblige.

Among the exciting details of the Obama’s visit to Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor is this tidbit:

Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.…

As the rest of us toil on the unemployment line, as millions of Americans find their retirement accounts dwindling, their hours at work cut, and their pay scale trimmed, King Barack and Queen Michelle are flying their little doggie, Bo, on his own special jet airplane for his own little vacation adventure.

Well, it must be nice to be able to afford to fly your doggie about the country whenever you feel like it. It must be nice to hire people to act as your dog’s escort. It must be comforting to know that you have the power to arrange such luxury for a dog.
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Noblesse Oblige: Obama’s Dog Gets Own Plane on Vacation Trip”


Financial Reform? More Like Union Giveaways!

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Thursday the Senate passed the Democrat’s financial reform bill. But even as Obama claims that this bill will “solve” the financial crisis, a look at the thing seems to prove that things financial took a back seat to giveaways to Obama’s union pals and sops to many of the Democrat’s other special interest friends.

The main union payback is the provision to allow unions and environut groups the ability to take control of the boardrooms of corporations in which they own stock through the so-called “proxy access” provision. This provision has been widely panned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

The Washington Times reports that there are other sops to Democrat special interests in this “financial reform” bill, too.
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Financial Reform? More Like Union Giveaways!”


Obama’s ‘Keep Your Doctor’ Lies

The Heritage Foundation wants to repeal Obamacare…

Repeal Obamacare from Heritage Action for America on Vimeo.

The Heritage Foundation recently launched a sister organization, Heritage Action for America. Heritage Action is leading a national campaign to repeal Obamacare.

Join the fight to repeal Obamacare with your donation to Heritage Action for America.
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Obama’s ‘Keep Your Doctor’ Lies”


No Problems With Union Nap Time

-By Warner Todd Huston

Do you get paid to sleep on the job? The union employees of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority apparently do. And if caught sleeping on the job, the punishment seems to be just a slap on the wrist, a wink and a nod, and business as usual afterward. All at $33 dollars an hour of the taxpayer’s money.

Must be nice “work” if you can get it?

Arnold Ahlert tells us of parking lots filled with MTA employee’s cars many of which contain pillows and blankets, supervisors locking themselves in offices for a soothing nap, and unions fighting to prevent any attempt to stop the outrageous practice of union members sleeping on the job.

Ahlert is yet another voice echoing our contention that unions are antithetical to good government.
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No Problems With Union Nap Time”


Is The U.S. Too Big to Fail? Greece Wasn’t…

SIGN THE PETITION NOW!!! www.crnc.org/petition

The College Republican National Committee is thrilled to announce the “Don’t Put It On Our Tab” debt-awareness initiative! The national debt poses a lethal threat to our economic future, and we’re not about to let the Democrats think we are ignorant to that fact. Help the CRNC stand up and speak out for our generation by signing the petition today!

Did you know that the a child born into this world today owes over $117,000 to the DEBT alone? With unemployment rising, ‘entitlement’ programs collapsing, and debt skyrocketing how are we ever going to pay that back? The answer is through conservative reform. Join our facebook group ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-Pu… ) to stay informed 24/7 about the debt, what we are doing to combat it, and to examine potential solutions to it!


Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare

Economics 101 and what we do AFTER we repeal Obamacare…

Ed Morrissey also has some good commentary about this video at HotAir.com.

Created by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. Visit their webpage at www.freedomandprosperity.org.


Want Economic Stimulus? Don’t Build a Sports Stadium!

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the last few decades sports teams across the country have nosed up to the public trough and demanded that states and cities chip in millions for the construction of new sports stadiums. To justify the public expense the claim has been made that these monstrous construction projects bring a wealth of jobs and spending on entertainment and are a boon to any city that will fund them. But are they? Do these multi-million dollar projects bring such lucrative benefits to the cities and states that pay through the nose for them?

For many years the “economic boom” idea of building stadiums seemed to make sense and city after state pumped billions of taxpayer’s dollars into such projects. But starting in the early 2000s, economists began to have enough data to show that the claims of beneficial end result of building stadiums was not as advertised.

In fact, these days economists that disagree amongst each other about so much have developed a wide consensus based on the belief that sports teams in and of themselves are not great economic engines for a city and that building giant new stadium complexes are not the automatic boon to the area such as they were sold.
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Want Economic Stimulus? Don’t Build a Sports Stadium!”


First Lady to Waste Millions ‘Visiting’ The Gulf Oil Spill

-By Warner Todd Huston

When times were flush, I guess it didn’t seem so outrageous for the First Lady of the White House to fly about the country “visiting” places as if she were an important part of our national government.

I suppose it was nice to have a First Lady leading by example with her advocacy programs and helpful ideas. There were the anti-drug programs, the literacy programs, the this-n-that programs that taxpayers spent millions on. There’s the big staff and millions of dollars in office expenses. Maybe when we weren’t trillions in debt these boondoggles didn’t seem so outrageous?

That was back when millions were to be had at the drop of a hat. Today is a different era. Today a First Lady should be leading austerity programs, and cost-savings drives.

But not our Queen Michelle. She’s flying about the country on million dollar “date nights” with the prez, she’s flying off to Camp David every time you turn around and she’s taking whirlwind trips around the world all on the taxpayer’s dime.

No austerity for our little Miss Michelle, I’ll tell you what.
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First Lady to Waste Millions ‘Visiting’ The Gulf Oil Spill”


Video: Ignoramus Democrat Says The More we Borrow the Richer we Get

-By Warner Todd Huston

Idiot Pete Stark (D, Calif.) says that the more we borrow as a nation the “richer” we get. You see, says Congressman Stark Raving, that trillions of dollars in debt proves that we are a rich people.

“If YOU’D SHUT UP,” Stark says we might be able to appreciate his genius. And if the guy that was trying to interview Congressman Stake Raving would “Get the fu*k outta here,” maybe we could all have benefited from Congressman Stark Raving’s perspicacity.

Just watch this and see why Democrats can’t be trusted to do… well, anything…

Wow, what a distempered half-wit Representative Stark Raving is.

Sadly, I see nothing to separate Rep. Stark Raving from any other Democrat. This video is pretty prosaic, really. This sort of economic ignorance piled on top of such arrogance is the Democrat Party personified.
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Video: Ignoramus Democrat Says The More we Borrow the Richer we Get”


Obama Says Stimulus Worked, Created Jobs… Here’s a Reminder of the Waste

-By Warner Todd Huston

In his recent trip to Racine, Wisconsin, President Obama claimed that his stimulus policies worked and “saved jobs.” He also said that his policies staved off another Great Depression. But lets take a look at some of the graft, waste and pointless, useless, wild-eyed spending that was in his so-called stimulus.

  • $5 million to create a geothermal energy system for a shopping mall in Tennessee. The mall is over half empty of tenants and has had falling shopper attendance for years *
  • $1.57 million to Penn State University study fossils in Argentina *
  • $100,000 to a puppet theater in Minnesota *
  • $2 million to build a replica railroad tourist trap in Carson City, Nev. *
  • A boat cruise company in Chicago got almost $1 million to “combat terrorism” *
  • $500,000 went to Ariz. State Univ. to study ant genetics *
  • Another $450,000 went to Uinv. of Arizona to study ants *
  • Almost $400,000 went to Univ. of New York to pay students to drink beer and smoke marijuana for a study there *
  • $219,000 went to the Nat’l Institute of Health to study if young people “hook-up” after getting drunk *
  • $210,000 to the Univ. of Hawaii to study bees *
  • $700,000 to crab fishermen in Oregon to pay for lost crab pots *
  • $5,000 a person tax rebate if you buy a new electric golf cart (Wall Street Journal)
  • Up to $1 million went to prisoners in $250 stimulus checks (FoxNews)
  • $54 mil to a New York Indian tribe to run its casino (New York Post)
  • $1 billion for a power plant in Mattoon, Illinois that is based on speculative science and may not even work **
  • $15 million to back-road bridges that get little traffic in Wisconsin **
  • $800,000 for a practically unused airport in Pennsylvania **
  • $3.4 million for an animal walk way under a road in Florida **
  • $1.15 million to install a guard rail for a lake that doesn’t even exist in Oklahoma **
  • $10 million to renovate a rail station that has stood unused for a decade **
  • $578,000 to battle homelessness in Union, New York even though the town says they have no homeless people there **
  • $233,000 to the Univ. of Calif. to study why Africans vote… in Africa ***
  • $2 million to build a new fire house in a Nevada town that has no firemen ***
  • North Carolina schools got $4.4 million for literacy and math coaches… to teach their teachers! ***
  • $54 million for a railroad project in Napa Valley went to a minority-owned company that then hired a local construction company for half the price, pocketing the rest ***
  • A California company was given $15 million in stimulus money to monitor water quality in a stream it was under indictment for polluting previously***

Well, obviously this is just a tiny list of the graft, waste, and useless spending in Obama’s so-called stimulus bill but it serves to illustrate the fact that stimulating the economy was far from the minds of those congressmen that voted for the bill. It was more about paying off constituents than stimulating the economy.

Source unless noted: * = The Hill. ** = Americans for Tax Reform, *** = Fox News.
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Obama Says Stimulus Worked, Created Jobs… Here’s a Reminder of the Waste”


Obama Fairness? White House Staffers See Amazingly Unequal Pay

-By Warner Todd Huston

In January one of the early “successes” of the White House was the Lilly Ledbetter Act, legislation that was supposed to insure equal pay “for everybody.” Apparently, as in all Obama’s pronouncements, the outcome of Obama’s drive for “fairness” is rarely as advertised. In this case, some people are more equal than others at least if we take various White House staffer’s pay scales into account.

As it happens about 36 percent of White House staffers make a low 30 percent of what the top 23 percent earn. Bill Collier of The Freedomist calculated that 42 percent of the salary budget is paid out to only 23 percent of the staffers.

What about all that vaunted equal outcome in pay, President Obama? I thought you were all about “fairness”?
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Obama Fairness? White House Staffers See Amazingly Unequal Pay”


Politico Misleads on NJ Gov. Chiristie’s Immigration Position

-By Warner Todd Huston

This morning Ben Smith of Politico posted a story that essentially mislead readers about what newfound conservative hero Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey thought about immigration. Smith’s article spun Christie into an “amnesty” supporter when it doesn’t seem he is. One has to wonder why Smith did this?

Among many other issues, in the multipage interview with Gov. Christie Smith broached the immigration issue. Being a governor, Christie is faced with as much trouble over the issue as any other, of course, but Smith’s characterization of Christie’s position on immigration would tend to make one feel that Christie is an amnesty supporter. In fact, Smith seems to impute several ideas or feelings into Christie’s replies that may not have been in them at all.

First off, Smith says that Christie had “long declined to ‘demagogue’ the issue” of immigration. It does not seem, however, that Christie has ever claimed to have a long record of refusing to “demagogue” the immigration issue.
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Politico Misleads on NJ Gov. Chiristie’s Immigration Position”


Dems Include Union Bailout in War Funding Bill

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is no other aspect of Washington D.C. that upsets voters more than government spending surreptitiously added on to spending bills and this week Congress indulged its inner drunken sailor once again by adding a $10 billion bailout for teachers unions in the bill that is supposed to fund the war effort.

The teacher union bailout ups the $60 billion expenditure to a $70 billion tab and is causing even some Democrats to balk.

Republicans have demanded that the war funding bill be clean of any tacked on spending and have threatened to withhold support of the bill if the teachers union bailouts and other unrelated spending additions are kept.
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Dems Include Union Bailout in War Funding Bill”


Property Tax Education Center Now On-Line

From the Dan Patlak for Cook County Board of Review campaign…

Wheeling—Cook County Board of Review candidate Dan Patlak has announced the grand opening of his new “Education Center” located on his web site at www.ElectPatlak.com. The Education Center possesses an array of pages for taxpayers to explore that include links to county and state property tax related departments, an “Ask Dan” section where taxpayers can pose their own questions, a listing of townships currently open for appeal to the County Assessor, a description of property tax exemptions available to homeowners and a variety of other information about the property tax system in Cook County.

“This campaign is about empowering individual taxpayers,” said Patlak. “Our Education Center provides information to property owners so they will have the ability to determine whether they are paying an appropriate share of the overall tax burden. It also encourages them to think about where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent. An informed citizen is a good citizen and as a Commissioner at the Board of Review I plan to continue educating taxpayers about how the system works and how they can be sure they are paying no more than their fair share,” concluded Dan Patlak.
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Property Tax Education Center Now On-Line”


Federal Funds Paid for ACORN Youth Groups

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you haven’t checked out CNSNews.com, it is a great place to find stories not widely discussed in the Old Media. Often CNS hits stories before anyone else and the Old Media has to play catch-up to report what CNSNews already reported. Recently CNS had an investigative story detailing millions in federal funds that went to pay for ACORN sponsored youth indoctrination groups.

According to CNS the U.S. Justice Dept. gave $135,130 in 2005 to a group called The New York Agency for Community Affairs. It turns out that this group was just an adjunct of ACORN and served as a recruitment arm among young people for the parent organization.

The Government Accountability Office also reports that nearly $40 million in federal funds went to ACORN and groups like it between 2005 and 2009.
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Federal Funds Paid for ACORN Youth Groups”


Obama’s Dept. of Labor Offers to Help Illegals Get Paid ‘Fairly’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here we are in a nation being inundated by illegal aliens, so much so that states are having to take what should be federal responsibility into their own hands to try and end this flood of illicit immigrants, and Barak Obama’s Sec. of Labor is announcing to illegals that she intends to help them get paid “fairly.”

Hilda Solis has a new video out promising to get illegals “every cent they earn.” You see, “every worker has a right to be paid fairly whether documented or not,” Solis helpfully tells us.

So, while the country is facing a flood of illegal immigrants that come here to overburden our system and commit crimes, we have a federal government promising to help make their illegal stay more comfortable.

Hey, Hilda…. what part of ILLEGAL don’t you understand?

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Obama’s Dept. of Labor Offers to Help Illegals Get Paid ‘Fairly’”


Gov. Christie Issues ‘Judgment Day’ To Destructive Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

New Jersey Governor Christ Christie is still holding the path in his battle against the budget killing unions in the state of New Jersey.

“We have to hold each other accountable… You don’t get something for nothing in this world, ever… yet, government has been trying to sell you over the course of time this idea that… we are gonna give you something and someone else is gonna pay for it. Those chickens have come home to roost.”

This guy is the stuff, man!

Naturally, the putrid unions are so incensed that they have announced that they are going to raise union dues fees so that they have more money to attack Governor Chris Christie in the upcoming elections.

They just don’t get it, do they. THEY are the problem, not the solution. Unions are the single most destructive force in American politics today.
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Gov. Christie Issues ‘Judgment Day’ To Destructive Unions”


Obama’s Healthcare Give Away to Union Special Interests

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of Obamacare’s new rules states that if your employer finds it necessary to change healthcare providers to a more cost effective plan they will lose their federal health plan exemptions. This will cause employers to drop employees from health plans forcing workers onto government sponsored plans. So much for Obama’s hoary idea that you can “keep your doctor if you like him.”

Of course, this harmful new rule only applies to 80 percent of America’s workforce because the other 20 percent, those that are union members, are getting a special deal from their pal Barack Obama.

At issue is the definition of the “grandfathered” health plan which is different for those plans initiated by collective bargaining and those simply instituted by an employer. The requirements for unions have been made far less stringent than those of non-union employers.
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Obama’s Healthcare Give Away to Union Special Interests”