NoLongerErnieVille
Remember when the usual suspects (i.e. the fine folks who are doing their best to, as Jon Stewart once put it, 'hurt America') ran with that chunk of rancid teabag-forged codswallopanariansm that Obamacare, after it was first introduced, was 'killing jobs' when what it was really doing was making it possible for people to finally run away from shite work when they no longer had to worry about losing their health insurance?
Well....
Now it would appear that a select group of those same fine folks are using Obamacare avoidance strategies that are making it impossible for the Chicago Cubs can't get Wrigley's infield covered when it rains.
A couple of satirists (I think) named Igel and Caplan have the story in Forbes:
...One of (the) provisions (of Obamacare) requires that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health care benefits to anyone in the company who works full-time. Under the law, full-time work qualifies as 30 hours or more per week. The provision isn’t in effect this year. But according to a report in The Chicago Sun-Times, the grounds crew at Wrigley Field was hobbled not because they were incompetent but because the Cubs have been cutting back on their work hours. Why? Cubs management is trying to avoid providing health care benefits figuring the crew can get coverage under Obamacare instead...
{snip}
...(T)he Cubs are owned by the Ricketts Family, who are serious supporters of the Republican Party, which is decidedly opposed to much of Obamacare; Pete Ricketts, a Cubs board member, is running for governor of Nebraska on the GOP ticket. But this isn’t about politics. It’s about businesspeople looking to find ways to squeeze out more profits by cutting benefits while looking to the Federal government to pick up the tab for those benefits...
Gosh.
It really does seem that the Koch Bros and all their fine friends are fiddling (and putting the shivs in) while they take all the money out and the Potomac roils and boils and burns.
And all that.
Of course, just like NRA-branchplant gun nuttery and middle class-destroying labour 'choice' before it, you can be sure that this kind of anti-universality econocrap will be coming to the banks of the Rideau soon if we don't do something, and fast.
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3 comments:
My daughter was in Chicago on business and was at that game.I filled her in on the back story when she returned. I've always wanted to go to a game at Wrigley but it's off my bucket list now. I love baseball but one thing continues to bother me. All the expensive hats and jerseys they sell to the public are made in China.Taxpayers subsidies to build the ballpark, the players make millions, and yet they won't create one manufacturing job for North Americans.I've e-mailed New Era about this but no response of course. I don't know about the banks of the Rideau but it damn sure is here on the banks of the Fraser. Fraser.
Where is Steve Goodman now that we need him!
sd--
It's getting tough to get out of the gouge zone even at minor league these games (see, for example, what goes on at short season rookie/not quite A ball games at Nat Bailey these days).
Amazing to hear that your daughter was at the game at Wrigley in question.
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Danneau--
Indeed.
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