Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:10am

Hometown Paper

 

 

 

For decades I was a subscriber to the Chicago Tribune.  The traditionally Republican paper in Chicago, for many decades it was the voice of Republicanism, and sometimes conservatism, throughout the Midwest.  In the nineties I noticed that The Trib was changing.  It was hiring more liberal columnists and the editorials took on an increasingly liberal flavor.  The paper would still usually endorse Republicans at election time, but the endorsements were pro forma.  Additionally, The Trib rarely had anything to say about the corruption that infested both parties and was busily producing the bankrupt Illinois that exists today.  One columnist who was, and is, a bright light at The Trib, John Kass, constantly attacked “the Combine”, as he called it, that ruled both parties and  made sure that insiders profited at the expense of the tax payers.

After my family became hooked up to the internet at the end of the nineties, living in a rural area did have its disadvantages back then in reference to obtaining a reliable internet service, I no longer needed The Trib for news, but I kept it out of inertia, although I was extremely unhappy with its increasingly leftist editorial views.  The inertia came to an end when The Trib endorsed Obama in 2008.  That ended my subscription, along with the subscriptions of quite a few other downstaters.  I noticed after the fact that I didn’t miss the paper.  It had become an anachronism in the age of the internet.  My wife still buys a copy at Thanksgiving for the black Friday ads, but that is the only time a copy of The Trib enters McClarey Manor.  The Trib endorsed Obama again in 2012 and its transformation into just another big city liberal rag seemed complete.

I was therefore surprised, and no doubt Obama was also, by The Trib’s editorial last Friday calling for the repeal of ObamaCare:

 

As Friday dawns, here’s what a health insurance crisis looks like to many millions of Americans: Barely six weeks shy of 2014, they do not know whether they will have medical coverage Jan. 1. Or which hospitals and doctors they might patronize. Or what they may pay to protect themselves and their families against the chance of medical and financial catastrophe. How much, that is, they may pay in order to satisfy the Democratic politicians and federal bureaucrats who are worsening a metastasizing health coverage fiasco.

For perhaps 5 million of those Americans thus far — estimates vary — the Washington-ordered cancellation of their policies is especially maddening. In the past these people took responsibility for their coverage and bought policies that balanced their needs, finances and personal choices. Congress and President Barack Obama, by enacting the Affordable Care Act, in effect ordered insurers to dismantle many of those individual plans — and cancel those policies.

The Americans manhandled by this exercise in government arrogance now find themselves divided into warring tribes: Those with chronic ailments who have found new plans on Obamacare exchanges and are pleased. Those who don’t want or can’t afford the replacement policies Obamacare offers them. Those whose new policies block them from using the health providers who have treated them for many years. The estimated 23 million to 41 million people whose employer-sponsored plans are the next to be imperiled. And on and on.

Most of these tribespeople only wish their big problem was a slipshod Obamacare website. On Thursday, their plight grew more frightful. With even Democratic members of Congress storming the White House over the cancellations, Obama declared — by what legal authority is unclear — that he would overrule the law he signed in 2010 and allow insurers to extend those canceled policies for a year.

If, that is, insurance regulators of the 50 states permit this potential distortion to risk pools inside and outside of Obamacare. The regulators, including those in Illinois, had better put protection ahead of politics: Within two hours of Obama’s announcement, Mike Kreidler, insurance commissioner of Washington, a Democrat-leaning state, rejected the president’s notion, citing “its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market. … We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their policies.”

Go here to read the rest.  I suspect that the powers that be at The Trib latched on to Obama because he seemed to be the wave of the future.  It is interesting in studying history to observe just how many times waves of the future come asunder on the rocks of reality.

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Daledog
Daledog
Sunday, November 17, AD 2013 10:34pm

I too cancelled the Trib in 2008 for the same reason as you. I’m ashamed it took me that long to do the deed. I love getting the letters in the mail pleading with me to come back. I love sending these letters back telling them how much I do not miss them and I throw in some stats about the decline of their industry.

Paul W Primavera
Paul W Primavera
Monday, November 18, AD 2013 8:36am

“I suspect that the powers that be at The Trib latched on to Obama because he seemed to be the wave of the future. It is interesting in studying history to observe just how many times waves of the future come asunder on the rocks of reality.”

Daniel chapter 4: http://www.usccb.org/bible/daniel/4

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Monday, November 18, AD 2013 10:53am

Would that such divine retribution could befall an entire political party . . . perhaps actually becoming jackasses might teach them something.

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