Sense on Cents

This story is a tad long, but it is chock-filled with a wealth of twists, turns, personalities, politicians, and much more. I strongly recommend.

Politics is clearly a contact sport. No doubt not all of the punches are above the belt.

I first referenced the Obama White House use of intimidation in the case of Tom Lauria, then lawyer for a group of Chrysler creditors. I wrote in early May 2009, Is Barack Obama Going Tony Soprano? How uncanny that the same reference is utilized today in an article centered on the impact of ObamaCare and the pending sale of three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals. American Spectator writes in regard to ObamaCare:

….the White House is confronted with a rapidly accelerating set of unintended consequences spreading across the country. As listed by theWall Street Journal, those unintended consequences included 2011 premium increases shooting up as high as 9%; “multibillion-dollar corporate writedowns by Verizon, AT&T, Caterpillar and others”; the disruption of insurance markets, a show-down with McDonald’s, the imposition of price controls on premiums, insurers withdrawing from Medicare Advantage.

In what appears to have become a pattern, the response from the Obama Administration has been repeatedly swift and harsh –compared by one critic as an episode straight out of the Sopranos, the famous HBO mobster series. (more…)