What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread, as always.
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1. First NY, now Cali. The revolt continues.
From TheWashingtonExaminer “An estimated seven out of every 10 physicians in deep-blue California are rebelling against the state’s Obamacare health insurance exchange and won’t participate, the head of the state’s largest medical association said.
“It doesn’t surprise me that there’s a high rate of nonparticipation,” said Dr. Richard Thorp, president of the California Medical Association.”
“California offers one of the lowest government reimbursement rates in the country — 30 percent lower than federal Medicare payments. And reimbursement rates for some procedures are even lower.”
“Independent insurance brokers who work with both insurance companies and doctor networks estimate that about 70 percent of California’s 104,000 licensed doctors are boycotting the exchange.”
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2. So who is really behind these grassroots astro-turf wage protesters at Wal-Marts and McDonalds?
From TheNYPost “These are busy — and profitable — times for rent-a-mobs. Just days after Black Friday protests against Walmart stores, many of the same agitators will be out again on Thursday protesting at fast-food restaurants in New York City and across the country.”
“At the forefront of this perpetual protest machine is New York’s Restaurant Opportunities Center, the union-founded “worker center” infamous for its protest shakedowns of nonunion restaurants.”
“In fact, ROC pioneered this model: A union front group organizes as a nonprofit “worker center,” which lets it skirt federal labor laws that set reasonable limits on union protests. A novel idea when it launched in New York in 2002, ROC is now one of hundreds of worker centers nationwide, including SEIU-backed groups with names like Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15. ROC itself has expanded to over 30 cities, with reported plans for a new, SEIU-funded chapter in Seattle.”
“Multiple congressional investigations are looking into just how smelly it all is. The House Education and the Workforce Committee has demanded that the Labor Department produce the documents it used in determining that ROC should be exempt from labor-law disclosures under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The same committee is separately demanding HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reveal how ROC managed to get named an ObamaCare navigator in New York. (ROC withdrew as a navigator just days after the program launched.)”
Right back to Democrats and the White House, who control both the Labor Dept and DHS. And ROC is just ACORN Version 2.0.
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3. Like I said, to the White House….
Oh, and I forgot one little detail…..
We’re paying for it. 🙄
From WatchDog.org “The Restaurant Opportunities Center, a union front and ACORN knockoff, is extending its reach by working with other groups to stage protests in 100 cities Thursday.
In a push for a higher minimum wage and more union members, ROC is also hiring a national campaign director to shepherd the center’s multimillion-dollar budget, partially plumped by taxpayer dollars.
Though registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonpartisan nonprofit, ROC is closely aligned with the Democratic Party and Big Labor, notably the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, said Mike Paranzino, spokesman for the group ROC Exposed.
“With her insider credentials, ROC co-director Saru Jayaraman was at the White House in May to participate in an unannounced strategy session on raising the minimum wage.”
They’ve received $1 million from the Dept of Labor, $200,000 from the CDC, and $500,000 from NYC, paid with federal stimulus funds. They completely ignore that it’s illegal to give taxpayer money to ACORN, and this IS ACORN.
And many of the people involved with this are the same people pushing for amnesty.
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Wandering Views 
My biggest problem with raising the minimum wage, is that employers will be forced to raise prices to cover those raises. People who have worked for decades, earning promotions or starting their own business and are making more than minimum wage will not get a raise, but their cost of living will go up. So, those people will pretty much get a pay cut. Here we go again punishing hard work.
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Heaven forbid!! Unless the CEO takes a pay cut, my Big Mac will go from $3.00 to $3.30. The horror!! How will I ever survive?
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Raise the minimum – it’s long overdue!!
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Roy,
And what of the employee who’s been with company for 12 years and makes $15.50 an hour? Where’s the fairness to him when new hires are getting $15 with no experience?
And don’t be so naïve as to think that it’s just burgers. The price of everything across the board would rise. And then the folks you supposedly lifted are no better off than before, but now all the people who were OK at $15.50 are no longer able to make ends meet due to higher costs for everything.
While some raise may be appropriate and sustainable, this won’t work. You might wanna re-think it, and this time try to consider unintended consequences too. Liberals never think their ideas thru to the obvious conclusions, which is why they back this. This is Detroit style economic policy. We all know how that worked out. No thanks.
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The claim is often made – & is probably true – that the big companies, such as McDonald’s & Walmart could easily afford to increase the pay of their employees. But that is not true of the small companies across the nation that, from what I have read, employ the majority of workers.
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