Random Thoughts

As we waiting for the traffic light to change, I looked over to the Sears parking lot and wondered if the company would be around in ten years. I was surprised when I heard that being discussed this morning by the ‘Morning Joe’ panel, and they added J.C. Penny to that list. Those stores are now a third or fourth options to Amazon, Lowes Dillard's, Sam’s Club,Wal-Mart and Costco these days but it’s not because Sears or J.C. Penny did anything wrong other than becoming that forth option. The 1950s business models are being crowed out by the warehouse models of today.

The conversation at our Thanksgiving gathering was about the younger members of our family cutting their ties to satellite and cable TV and moving to Internet TV. Now they pay for whatever they want to watch. They all live in a city, so with an indoor antenna; they are still able to pick up ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS. Ten years ago, a lot of people thought that Blue Tooth and WIFI would never catch on. Today we have our doubts about USB 3.0 and 3D TV.

Look around the mall and I bet you will see that half of the people are talking or texting on their cell phones. I would also bet that more than half of those people don’t own land lines anymore.

As I’m getting a glimpse of the future ;will some still be promoting Intelligent Design and denouncing evolution? I suspect they will because when ‘faith’ is the main arguing point, there is no room for scientific logic. That’s too bad because I think there’s room for coexistence. I never realized how dumb I was until I read some of the intelligent comments about the subject the other day. Biology was a course where I strived for grade of C, so I could meet the minimal requirements and move on.

Hey, if you are going to shop anyway, consider buying locally because for every dollar you spend in your home town, 52¢¢ of it stays in the area.

And Yet Another List

A local letter writer, W.E. White, wrote a letter to our editor titled “Reader presents list of president’s action.” This chain of events started when a conservative wrote a similar letter causing a rebuttal by another writer listing the president’s actual accomplishments. These letters received a lot of comments on our local newspaper’s on-line forum.

I understand that some people assume everything that goes bad in our country stems from whoever sits in the oval office. It’s probably been that way since the beginning of our Republic. An undocumented protester in San Francisco disrupted the president’s speech yesterday calling on Obama to stop deporting all 11 million people who are here illegally. The president said he cannot legally do that but the opposition party has accused him of that. That’s an example of how people seem to dismiss Congresses ‘s role in enacting and enforcing our laws.

Without further ado, I will answer the 23 bullet points (which could easily be condensed to six) because a lot of them originate with the Affordable Care Act. It’s something about ACA, Benghazi and the IRS that riles up conservatives to no end.

1. Mr. White makes no mention of the 2008 financial crash and the steps we took to recover from that, as being part of the debt.

2. Detroit has been mismanaged for years, so I don’t see what Obama being president had to do with it going bankrupt.

3. This is hilarious, because the writer thinks that racism is a one way proposition and hate radio does not exist. He also dismisses all the racism directed at the president and his family.

4. Inner city crime has been around for longtime and will be as long as poverty exists but I’ll see where the spike in gang related murders in South Chicago has anything to do with the president. I guess by that standard, we can blame the Newtown killings on Obama.

5. The latest information I received is that healthcare costs are leveling off but I can understand insurance premiums going up in some states but that’s got more to do with business decisions.

6. Let me repeat, 80% of Americans will not be affected by the Affordable Health Care Act. Yes, some people will purchase items they won’t use but that’s to keep the costs from escalating.

7. No doubt, the website rollout was a disaster and expensive.

8. Company health benefits are at risk because of ACA is speculation not supported by any facts.

9. The Middle East was not a mess prior to the invasion of Iraq.

10. Violence is rising in Iraq and that’s the president’s fault because? The writer is probably implying that we should’ve kept our troops in Iraq against the country’s wishes. Removing out troops from Iraq was something Americans overwhelmingly approve of.

11. The Taliban will get worse when we leave and have you read what president of Afghanistan wants in return for our staying?

12. Egypt is in turmoil and you want the president to do what?

13. Four brave Americans were killed in Benghazi at the hands of extremists, and we’ve held several hearings on what we could and should’ve done but all those involved (Congress, State dept., president) knew about the security problems before the attack.

14. I’m pretty sure that our security methods are secure but then you  get push back from those who want more transparency.

15. The IRS incident had nothing to do with Obama and all to do with groups abusing the nonprofit status of the 501 (C ) ( 4).

16. The economic recovery is slow but what is GOP controlled House of Representatives doing about it?

17. Ditto to number 16.

18. The most new jobs are part time is a free market decision and has nothing to do with the government or the president… I’m not so sure that your statement is correct. Conservatives like to say that government does not create jobs (although we have 21 million federal workers) the free- markets does ;then they complain about the jobs numbers.

19. I go back to number 16.

20. I go back to number 16

21. I’m not so sure that the elderly have enough money in securities to weigh the difference. Besides it’s a choice between higher lending rates for possible growth and a few points on CD rates.

22. Lol… Now you’re reaching… Obama has canceled White House tours?

23. It’s funny how a lie about 5% of the people not getting to keep their insurance gained so much prominence but a lie that led to over 4000 deaths in Iraq is forgotten.

The Deal with Iran

This is one time I can understand the skepticism about trusting the Iranians to discontinue their development of a nuclear weapon. I don’t trust them either, but we’ll learn more in six months. We haven’t really spoken to them in 34 years. They have a new leader so why not give it a shot?

It didn’t surprise me that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not like this deal because anything short of dismantling all the centrifuges would have been unacceptable to him. I also expected Senator Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, the GOP and even a few Democrats to be against anything other than more sanctions. The Israeli lobby will be in full force trying to persuade Congress to balk at this deal. It’ll be interesting to see if Harry Reid brings up a bill calling for more sanctions in the next six months.

Joe Scarborough didn’t surprise me, when he said that the Iranian deal was a terrible, and he hurled another charge of competency at President Obama. Joe cracked me up when said some unnamed sources, his Arab connections, told him that they don’t know what side President Obama is on. Mr. Scarborough doesn’t understand why Sunni Arab countries don’t like the United States negotiating with Shiite countries like Iran. It’s like teenage girls not liking their best friend talking to someone outside their little clique. Joe was also upset because the administration did not tell Israel or Saudi Arabia about their secret talks with Iran five months ago. He said that it was unconscionable and disrespected our allies. I don’t think so because they would have disagreed with the meetings. It’s one of those “it’s easier to say you’re sorry than to ask for permission.”

Bill Kristol was furious, saying that the sanctions were working, and we should do more. In 2003, Iran had 164 centrifuges under really tough sanctions. Today, they have 19, 000; you do the math. Things got kind of heated until Richard Haas, president of the Council Foreign Relations, asked Bill point blank, “what would you do short of starting a war, to get all those centrifuges dismantled?” “Bill Kristol said that some targeted strikes would not be considered a war.” I think it’s important what Iran would consider an act of war.

I remember the 2008 presidential campaign when Obama was labeled naïve for saying that we should negotiate with Iran. It was during that same campaign when Obama said he would go into Pakistan and get Osama bin Laden if he had information he was there. Those are two naive campaign promises that he kept. The Iranian deal may go awry but at the very least, we will know what they have been up  to and what they are capable of doing.

Change is a Matter of Perspective

Our country is different when it comes to accepting change because so many people don’t want stop what is working for them. We have an equal amount of people who want to live in an individualist society as those that want a more of a collective one. I use the word ‘equal’ because I really don’t know if we can accurately break it down. I think people move in and out of those groups an their situation changes.

One of the new changes we will accept is all the department stores that will be open on Thanksgiving. I remember being upset that I was off for the holiday but the stores were closed. Now it’s the opposite since the shoe is on the other foot. Some will say that the greedy chain stores no longer care about the family but others will say they are providing more overtime money for the employees. The giant stores no longer care about the negative publicity, they know we will get over it. I can remember that it used to be an unwritten sin to be open on a holiday. Don’t be alarmed that Thanksgiving is blended in with Christmas because you know we been talking about that for years. Will holidays go the way of the company pension plan?

We are seeing the effects of the all -voluntary army. It used to be that during the holidays we waited for at least one family member from the military to make it to a family gathering.  I seriously doubt that any future presidential candidates will have any military service.

I used to be a poll driven person but that’s when we only had about two or three polls to look at and they were done on a monthly basis at the most. Now the pundits are telling us that Pres. Obama is at 41% on Monday and by Tuesday he’s at 37% approval, as if it’s an actual nose count. They tell us that the president has to fire somebody, and take some other action to get those pull numbers up. Mitt Romney thought he was comfortably ahead on the last day of the election. I still think polls are a good measurement at a particular time but I’m not the believer I once was.

I have seen the difference in computer operating systems and a reason I am moving away from Microsoft and towards Apple. The first thing I wanted to do when I got my MacBook Pro was install a virus protector but the operating manual advised against it because of the built in protection and the fact that hackers concentrated on MS systems. My MS desktop has an annoying malware that I am trying to get rid of. When I log in at VA (a lot of upload graphics) I get a lot of ads but not when I log in with my Apple devices. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with my settings. That’s a change, because I remember a lot of Apple v MS arguments when I was on the side against Apple and I would still be that way if it wasn’t for the iPhone and iPad. Those devices opened the door to excellence.

Times are Changing

I rarely go to the grocery store with my wife but today I didn’t have anything better to do so I tagged along.

We weren’t in the HEB Plus for five minutes when I ran into a former coworker and then five minutes later my wife, and I ran into some old friends we haven’t seen in years. We reminisced about 20 minutes and ended it by acknowledging that every day that passes we get new aches and pains.

I’ve noticed that my yearly seminars in Austin, Houston or Corpus Christi were becoming harder and harder to attend. Ten years ago, getting up to 5:00 in the morning and driving to one of those cities was a piece of cake, especially the one in Corpus Christi. Nowadays, I have to pack my meds and not forget to take them.My peripheral vision and night driving skills are not what they were,so I rarely put it to test. 

This year because of previous appointments, Austin, Texas was the only two-day seminar that I could attend.

My initial plan was to leave Victoria no later than 5:00 AM to make the Thursday 8:00 AM registration. A couple of weeks ago, we drove to the IH 35 location, so I wouldn’t have any predawn surprises.

We had lunch with my daughter this afternoon, and the subject of my trip came up. She told me that I could leave tomorrow and make it a two-night stay because I'm not as young as I used to be, and that I shouldn’t be driving alone in the dark. She said that the roads were dark and foggy conditions make that route even more dangerous. I told her that I would be fine, so we continued eating our meal and started talking about something else. As soon as we told our daughter good-bye and got to our car, I could feel my wife's brain waves working overtime. That’s when she told me that it would be a lot safer if I left tomorrow and took my time. We went over the pros and cons, and the pros won without a fight. I’ll be leaving tomorrow at 1:30 PM, and hopefully I’ll be back Friday around 7:30 PM, making it only a couple of hours of driving in the dark.

It could be just me, but I’ve been hearing about automobile accidents a lot more these days. I wonder how much we could attribute that to people not taking the extra hours or day to drive to their destination. I know Victoria is growing (a lot more cars) which might contribute, but I think we have more than our share of fatal accidents. I immediately look at the ages of those involved in accidents and found that a lot of them are 55 years and older.

Well until Saturday or a day or two after ........ this blog will have to do.

What Liberal Bias in the Media?

Yesterday, I had to recheck my program guide because I thought that the so-called mainstream media had morphed into Fox News, Info Wars, and the Drudge Report. In fact, Fox News Sunday’s coverage of the administration’s Obamacare problems was pretty tame.

David Gregory of ‘Meet the Press’ tried to grill Leader Pelosi, but she’s been on a few talk shows and was ready. David let Senator Ayotte slide when she said that Republicans wanted to work on a bipartisan healthcare bill. I think that would be news to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It wasn’t until later in the show when, Mike Murphy, republican strategist, revealed that the GOP is sitting on the sidelines cheering all the failures but won’t say it publicly because a lot of people have lost their healthcare coverage.

It seemed like all the talk shows were using the same script that started early last week. "Will this disastrous roll out be Obama’s Katrina or Iraq? " A democrat quickly pointed out that no one has died because the website is not working. I think the opposition party is trying to mask President Bush’s failures by falsely comparing administrations. History will judge the Affordable Care Act and President Obama because it takes more than a news cycle to evaluate the final results.
‘ABC This Week,’ took it to another level implying that the president’s problems at home would transcend as weakness in our negotiations with Iran. That’s a lot to get into, but Howard Dean pretty much stopped that talk when he said it was the president’s tough sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place. It was also brought out that the president would have a tough time passing the immigration reform. You think? Speaker Boehner said that issue would not come to the floor in 2013 and that did have a thing to do with the Obamacare.

This morning, MSNBC’s 'Morning Joe’ with Joe Scarborough summarized the weekend talk shows and to no surprise, Joe Scarborough, emphasized the negatives. Joe said that the 39 Democrats who voted for Fred Upton’s bill scared the White House. That was the theme all weekend but Lawrence O’Donnell and Chuck Todd shot that down. When the White House let it be known that Fred Upton’s bill would be vetoed, it made it a political safe vote for the Dems. Now, if 100 Democrats would have voted for it, that would have been a different story. Joe Scarborough tried to mock Leader Pelosi’s statement that her party would “stand tall” behind the Affordable Care Act but Chuck Todd disagreed saying they voted for it, and it is in their best interest to own it. That’s so true, in the 2010 election the 32 blue dogs who voted against ACA all lost their election but all Democrats who voted for the law were reinstated. That just proves that voters still like politicians who stand on principal.

It is just my unprofessional opinion, but I think that this White House relationship with the media has been strained since the Justice Dept. threw a wide net around their fellow journalist Fox News’s James Rosen’s phone calls. I saw Andrea Mitchell attacking the president’s credibility on a lot issues after that.

It’s fair to say that no one would want to watch CNN explain how the insurance companies are trying to profit off the latest missteps in rolling out Obamacare nor do people want to hear about the successful signups. The talk-show hosts and reporters have company sponsored health care policies, so how can they know the joy people are having by purchasing insurance for the first time in their lives? I would be satisfied with some stories about states denying their citizens health care just to satisfy their ideological principles.

We have to live with the media coverage we have and it doesn’t do any good to long for the days of Walter Cronkite because the audience, times, and expectations have changed.
Who knows, next Sunday the media may do a story about CBSs, Lara Logan, using fake whistle blower, Dylan Davies, account of what happen in Benghazi

Consumer Protection or Freedom?

The ‘Morning Joe’ panel had another passionate healthcare discussion and a little of doomsday predictions for President Obama thrown in for good measure. Republicans are trying to say that the troubles with healthcare will be Obama’s Katrina, meaning that he will never recover, and he is now a lame-duck president.

This morning’s panel consisted of Joe Scarborough, Nicole Wallace, Katty Kay, Harold Ford and Howard Dean. Harold Ford is a conservative corporatist Democrat who usually agrees with Joe Scarborough. Howard Dean took issue with the other members on the panel because he thought that in nine months; health care would be the forgotten subject because the troubles would be behind them.

The discussion took a different course when Nicole Wallace challenged Howard Dean when he said that insurance companies should not be allowed to sell junk policies. Joe and Nicole said that all young people needed were the cheaper catastrophic policies. Nicole also said that people resented the government having the final say on what should be included in a basic policy. Howard Dean said consumer protection is a must because insurance companies have been ripping off their customers for years. Nicole Wallace said that insurance commissioners should make that determination. Howard Dean said when he was governor he would not allow those junk policies to be sold.

It wasn’t until I got my first job with benefits that started weighing my insurance options. I tried using what I had discovered on my mom, who was throwing her money away her whole Life insurance policy. She would have none of it because the insurance salesman was a family friend; in fact, when he came to collect, he often ate breakfasts or dinner. Yes, she had freedom to choose her policy but when she passed away, we all had to pitch in to defray the cost of her funeral. I’m glad I didn’t convince her because sometimes you have to work around what’s better financially and what is practical.

I believe in consumer protection and the freedom to choose. You have the freedom to go buy a junk truck, but if you want to drive it on our highways, it has to meet inspection. It’s the same way with healthcare insurance, if the policy doesn’t cover the basics; we’re back to square one. Republican Representative Fred Upton’s bill that will be voted on today will allow insurance companies to sell policies that predate Obamacare in yet another attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act.

The End of Liberalism …NOT!

Conservatives like Joe Scarborough, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and others are using the troubles of the Affordable Health Care Act to push their message that liberalism and government does not work. In their minds, the two go together as a package.

The Republican Conservative machine like Fox News, talk radio, Frank Lutz and politicians are spearheading this message, not your FB Republicans, relatives, or tea party uncle, because they are merely parroting what they hear.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because if they can get elected based on being anti- government, everything they do to disrupt government progress is a plus. They run on a platform of smaller government and never on efficient government. For example, the FDA may be undermanned but TSA may have too many people working for them. I’ve always found that 16 intelligent gathering agencies make them less efficient.

It’s worth mentioning again, Conservatives are great campaigners, but they suck at governing because it goes against their principles. Their main goal is less government and more free market, but they just want government to protect our country and deliver the mail. They’re doing everything possible to take mail delivery away from them. If that’s the case do we need all those congressmen? The non-libertarian conservatives do want big government when it comes to social issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

We should never underestimate conservatives because they wake up, eat their breakfast cereal, drink their cup of coffee and their minds instantly switches into gear thinking of ways they can indoctrinate the whole country. They eat, sleep and drink this ideology, and it’s as much of them as their religion is. Joe Scarborough is a great example of this, just this morning he introduced Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia as being a great conservative model despite the fact that the governor is mired in a bribery scandal.

On the other hand, Liberals/Progressives do think that government has a role to play, but they’re more compromising. For example, the public option and single payer were not a viable option in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. They settled for universal health care using expanded Medicaid and private insurance companies. Liberals/Progressives do take a firm stance against the voucher system, whether it be in education or Medicare because they see it as a first step toward privatization. I’ve always said that government is the equalizer.

It’s getting a bit confusing because conservatives of all stripes are trying to take the dominant position of the political party they chose to participate in. The old established Republicans talked of small government but expanded the defense department. The new tea party Republicans wants smaller government, but their method puts a choke hold on growth.

Right now, there’s a total distrust in government; unfortunately that will eventually lead to economic failure. Is that the goal of conservatism?

Obamacare or Bust

In my last blog ‘When is a lie a lie?’ I said that the president should probably go around the country and apologize for misleading the country. I’ve had a slight change of heart since then after listening to some pundits tell their version of what “if you’d like your health plan and your doctor, you can keep them” meant.

I saw a clip of President Clinton at the State of the Union where he lobbied for health care reform. The former president told young people that their insurance premiums would more than likely go up but because they were paying for people who were using the system at a much higher rate. He said that they would benefit in the long run because they would eventually be in that category but healthcare premiums would be less expensive. As we know, Hillarycare never got an up or down vote.

When President Obama went around the country saying that people could keep their insurance and doctor, people had to know that he couldn’t tell the insurance companies, not to cancel people, nor did he have control of a doctor leaving the profession, or what economic decisions their employer were going to make. Insurance companies cancel policies routinely. The president wasn’t speaking to recipients of Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits or those whose company provided health care policies. The president was speaking to people who were going to purchase their insurance on the individual market. These people made up 5 %( ~14 million) of the healthcare market.

It’s reasonable to assume that the healthcare insurance companies knew that their current policies would not meet the basic requirements of the Affordable Health Care Act. These are the same companies who would go over a customer’s health information to find reasons to cancel them. Why weren’t they upfront with their customers?

I see where some prominent Democrats are running scared and are introducing proposals to reverse the Obamacare’s cancellations. Most of those Democrats represent red states. Senator Mary Landrieu’s bill would grandfather any plan that was, in effect, in January of 2013. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Congress can make the insurance companies accept everyone back in. The companies would probably take the young healthy ones and leave the more sickly ones in the ACA market. I still don’t see where it would help the overall practice of reducing costs by allowing insurance companies to sell junk policies. Bill Clinton didn’t help much by saying that the president should allow the canceled policies to be reinstated. Oh well, the “Big Dog” is entitled to his opinion.

The House of Representatives will vote on a bill Friday to allow those who were canceled to keep the policies they had. I’m not sure whether house Democrats will vote for it or if Harry Reid will take up the legislation. The White House will likely veto the bill because it will cause more problems than it will fix.

Republicans may be digging themselves a hole because if Obamacare fails, the GOP will have to come up with a viable option. They can’t go back and say, “those proposals we opposed will work now that we are responsible for health care. “ The GOP will not use the public option or a single payer system, so they too will have to implement the individual mandate that they have demonized up to now. The negativity is driving potential customers away, so don’t think they will come back just because it’s a Republican driven plan. The GOP prescription drug plan had a disastrous rollout but Democrats worked with the opposition party to make it work.

Where was Congress when healthcare costs were skyrocketing in 2002? There was a report by the American Medical Association that the high cost of health care is attributed to the cost of medicine and hospital charges and not so much elderly care. Healthcare costs are not rising as fast but most of that was due to the recession and about a third of it was due to health care reforms in the Affordable Care Act.

I don't think the president has any other option but to plow straight ahead and not even consider a delay for now. Many who advising delay are known opponents of the law and are overjoyed over the failures so far. They will continue asking for delays until the mid-term elections

A Constant Drip of Right Wing Propaganda

As I was waiting in the long line at TNT this morning, I decided to hear what right-wing radio was upset about this morning. I found 740 AM KTRH out of Houston, which was hosted by a local racist named Michael Berry. This guy started several sentences by saying “this may sound racist” as if that was supposed to give him cover.

The subject was about another James O’Keefe sting, where he found black government health care navigators helping black people fraud the government. This was a case about the navigator advising the applicant not to go back and file a tax return for some janitorial work he did as an independent contractor. The listeners would never investigate this Michael O’Keefe hoax because it fits a narrative they want to hear. For example, the applicant probably didn’t make enough to file a tax return and even if he did, he probably would be 140% below the poverty level. Mr. Berry enhanced the story by saying that ACA will be the biggest welfare fraud ever perpetrated by man. He said the leader, President Obama, greatest claim to fame was his work as a community organizer, which gave him the contacts and experience to pull off this fraud. There you go a perfect trifecta; the listeners can get angry at black navigators and the applicants, and they found another reason to hate the president.

A poster asked the other day why someone was a bigot or a racist for not liking the president’s policies. You can go a step further and not like the president without being a bigot or a racist. People know where that line is, and they know when they have crossed it. Many like to go to the water’s edge, but no one wants to be called a racist. Michael Berry uses best his black voice to pretend that he was an applicant seeking welfare; as part of his monologue. I know it when I see it.

Yesterday, Chris Matthews made a good point by saying that Democrats need to even the playing field. The media is covering the disastrous ACA rollout, as well they should, but part of the story should be about GOP obstruction and their refusal to take part in extending Medicaid. The Democrats should always own up to mistakes, but they should also ask their opponent “what’s your plan for reducing high cost of health care.” This should be done at the local, state and national level.

It’s a good thing I don’t listen to talk radio daily because an aspirin a day wouldn’t be enough to keep me alive…. I’m on my way to a full recovery from rotator cuff surgery. Yesterday was my last day of therapy and today my doctor told me to ease into my normal activities; except for riding my bicycle; another month of recuperating before I can do that.

Nanny State or Good Governance?

I’m a bit surprised there hasn’t been much of an uproar about the recent decision by the FDA to target trans fats in the food chain. I would guess it’s because the government agency hasn’t said what it’s going to do about it. Did you really think it was a coincidence that McDonalds and other fast food started producing healthy menus? It wouldn’t surprise me if the fast food chemists are cooking up another unhealthy genetic substitute to take its place.

I did hear Sean Hannity blaming liberals, the president, the first lady and big government about the possibility of the FDA cracking down on trans fats but that’s all part of his daily monologue.

I love my trans fats but I know I’m not supposed to have them and a lazy person like myself will benefit if the FDA takes them off the shelf. I know the sermon “ you don’t need government, you should be able to do that for yourself.” We’ve had this argument with the tobacco companies, big tobacco lost and we are better off for it.

What’s the FDA supposed to do? Does the agency look at the data from their medical research and settle for another label attached to the food (which nobody reads), pat themselves on the back and say, “we’ve done our job?” if that’s the case then we should abolish that agency because the fast food chemists can do that. They know exactly what goes into their products and the long lasting damage it will do.

You can make that two-way argument about jobs. You can say the extra regulations will cost jobs or you can say the eating unhealthy foods will lead to absenteeism and an early grave. I haven’t even mentioned the higher cost of health care for the company.

When the mayor of New York issued the ban of the 32oz soda, it was more about the message than anything else. That was considered an overreach and for good reason. New York was also the one of the first large cities to ban smoking in public places. At first the citizens balked and cautioned the lawmakers about the loss of tourism revenue but they learned to love the law.

There are some people starting to complain about paying for items in their health care policy that they will never use. That happens all the time in our everyday life when childless couples complain about paying for school taxes etc. The complainers equate this a nanny state “one size fits all” formula.  If you buy a new car you might be paying extra for the extra child belt, and several safety devices you will never use but are required to have. When the seat belt law was being discussed the car manufacturers squawked and complained bitterly about going bankrupt if the law was passed. Today, we are glad seat beats are standard equiptment.