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From Weekly Saturday Interview with John DeMasi’s “Talk with a Purpose” on WPG Radio, 95.5FM and 1450AM near Atlantic City, New Jersey:
Obamacare delays vital tests by months–unless you have special connections.
Host John Demasi and Seth Grossman describe how doctor referred them to specialists to test for dangerous symptoms. But specialists could not give either of them appointments to even talk to specialists about getting those tests for months. Each found doctors to take those tests only by using personal friends and connections. This is normal is socialist and Third World countries. It was never normal in America before Obamacare.
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You Often Need Insider Connections to Get Essential Care:Â To get the medical treatment you need, you often need advocates with influence and connections. .
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Impact of Policy: This began in 2014 when “Obamacare” (The wrongly named “Affordable Care Act”) took effect. It caused many of our best doctors to retire or join large corporate practices run by clerks and bureaucrats. They big practices depend on the government agencies and big insurance companies that pay them. They no longer depend on their reputations and good will of their patients. These practices often use “diversity, equity, and inclusion” instead of merit when hiring their doctors.
- A handful of voters approve $36 million of new debt for Egg Harbor Township public schools.
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Egg Harbor Township School Board members deliberately held special election onf March 10 to guarantee super-low voter turnout: They could have put the question on the ballot for last November’s regular election at no cost to local taxpayers. But they chose not to. They deliberately spent probably $100,000 to hold a special election on March 10. (They did not publicly announce the cost.) Many voters knew nothing about it. Many were in Florida. Many had no idea that the polls did not open until noon. They did this for one obvious reason. Roughly 18,000 Egg Harbor Township voters voted in last November’s election. The school board members knew that most of them would vote “No.” They knew most taxpayers in Egg Harbor Township do not want to borrow $36 million just for repairs and maintenance on existing buildings. And so these School Board members wasted money on a special election to guarantee a super-low turnout. Only 2,428 people voted last Tuesday, March 10. That was less than 10% of the 37,000 registered voters of Egg Harbor Township. 1,470 voted “yes” and 857 voted “no”.
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Only the handful of voters who benefited from the $36 million were notified of this special election. trategic Timing: Seth The school sent emails and notices to all teachers, parents of students and employees and contractors. I bet they also used their “emergency” telephone system to remind to vote.
- Failure to deal with the real issue. Government makes everything way to expensive to build and fix. There are ridiculous union rules, environmental rules, diversity equity and inclusion rules, and all sorts of laws that make doing anything a violation of something.
- The solution to everything being unaffordable? Force somebody else to pay! Get a “grant” from the state or federal government to pay for a local project. Borrow the money, and get your kids and grandkids to pay!
Crazy “fee-shifting” lawsuit laws reward fake “victims” and punish taxpayer.
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Do you remember the 2020 George Floyd Riots in Atlantic City? That was when more than a hundred rioters broke windows and looted stores on Atlantic Avenue, and in “The Walk” Shopping District. That was when Steve Young and six others deliberately blocked traffic several times None of them cared a bit about the thousands of business owners and workers have to earn a full year of income in a ten-week tourist season.
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Mayor Marty Small and the Atlantic City Police Department then did an outstanding job. They watched hours of video. They questioned dozens of witnesses. They positively identified 95 rioters who broke windows, stole merchandise and fought with police. They used enormous discipline and patience in not arresting Steve Young and his bunch until they actually blocked traffic on the Expressway ramp.
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And then Governor Murphy and the then-Atlantic County Prosecutor stabbed our law enforcement in the back. They did not prosecute or punish a single person who was caught red-handed breaking the law, breaking windows, blocking traffic or stealing merchandise. Youhad had even worse riots in Trenton, and nobody was punished for anything there either. And of course, not a single Republican politician in New Jersey said or did anything either. The bottom line, is that all charges were either dropped or not pursued.
- And now yesterday, it was reported that Steve Young and the other six who were arrested for blocking traffic on the Atlantic City Expressway are suing the taxpayers of Atlantic City for $50 million!
- Frivolous Lawsuit Laws: These are a big, big reasons why nobody can afford anything these days, but nobody talks about it. And it’s not just Steve Young. You have a guy in a wheelchair right now going to every small business he can so he can prove they are in violation of some handicap accessible law. Then his lawyer threatens to sue for thousands of dollars unless he gets paid a few hundred dollars for his “emotional distress.
- Impact of “Civil Rights” Laws: Don’t blame lawyers. Blame the politicians who make these laws that are absolutely evil. For hundreds of years, lawyers were paid by something called the American rule. Clients paid their own lawyers. If the client had a good case, the client usually got a good lawyer willing to take it. The lawyer knew that he was likely to win, get a good recovery, and get paid well out of the recovery. Lawyers did not take crappy, frivolous cases because they were likely to lose or collect almost nothing. But then politicians enacted all of these so-called “civil rights” laws. These so-called “civil rights” laws basically say that if you are a member of a so-called “protected class”, the American Rule does not apply. If you are black, Hispanic, female, gay, transgender, illegal immigrant or whatever, and if you say your feelings were hurt by some minor insult or technical violation that happens to everyone in everyday life, you can recover only $200 and your lawyer can get $20,000 from the other side. And if you say your feelings got hurt, you can sue for “emotional distress” even without any evidence of emotional distress. And you can claim punitive damages on top of that. That’s why insurance is so expensive and taxes are so high. Everybody pays big moneyto settle these crappy cases, because they will usually pay more if these cases go to trial.
Do those “free” concerts and airshows really pay for themselves?
How do we know? How do we know that tourists who spend money during those events weren’t coming to Atlantic City anyway? How many came to watch the concert or airshow and then left without spending a dime? CRDA was first set up to be the “Casino Reinvestment Development” Authority. It was supposed to force casinos to invest 2% of their gross casino “win” to improve their properties. Now CRDA takes 1.25% of their win, together with a $3 tax on “free parking” and a $2 “occupancy tax” to pay for “free” concerts, airshows and other public relations stunts.
Its Tourist Agency claims that 70% of Atlantic City hotel guests stay for only one night. It claims these “free” events are needed to persuade them to stay longer. But how many don’t stay longer because they don’t think the city is clean and safe? How many leave early because all the nickel and time taxes added to their hotel, food and beverage bills?
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TRANSCRIPT OF SELECTED PARTS:
SOCIALIST MEDICAL CARE IN AMERICA:Â YOU OFTEN NEED INSIDER CONNECTIONS TO GET NEEDED TREATMENT.
So I call the specialist, a medical group I have been dealing with for years. Now this is in January, and they tell me, “Oh, we can give you an appointment in May or June for or five months from now. Or, we can set you up with a telephone call with a paramedical in April, three months from now.”
Now if the symptoms show something serious is going on, this can be life-threatening. Fortunately, you and I are both Boomers. We have doctor friends, and friends who are retired doctors. So we both got through to somebody who got us the tests we needed right away.
But I really feel sorry for the younger people who don’t have those personal contacts. And let’s face it, even all those doctors who we have personal contacts with are retiring, they’re leaving. And it is a real crisis that we have. Before they started Obamacare, the so-called Affordable Care Act in 2014, I had been going to the same Primary Care doctor for nearly thirty years, and as kid, I went to his father! Within just a couple of years, I’d say eight out of some 10 doctors I knew either retired and went out of business, or joined big practices.
JOHN DEMASI: It’s horrible what’s happened and you’re right.Â
SETH GROSSMAN: You know nobody cares now that the government is paying, now that the government decides who gets paid, who doesn’t get paid, the interest is in pleasing the government bureaucrats, not the patients. And it’s a very, very bad thing.
JOHN DEMASI: Yes. It is. Yes. It is. And fortunately, like you said, I know people who know people, and that got me in. You know? So but but you’re right. What if you didn’t have that? I mean, really, when a doctor tells you that you may have heart blockage, this is serious stuff. You know? And some clerk in the office doesn’t really realize that it’s serious, and that the patient needs to be seen right away. So it’s it’s it’s very frustrating. Let me tell you. I was frustrated for a couple of days. Believe me.Â
SETH GROSSMAN: Well, a lot of people are, and, unfortunately, that’s the new normal. And when you have any medical condition, you know, you just have to change the way you do things that you just can’t go by yourself. You almost have to get a friend or family member involved, to be your advocate. Because sometimes when you’re concerned about your medical condition and the doctor or nurse is telling you stuff, you’re worried about your condition. You’re not focusing on how to see, you know, the next person or what the procedure is or what form has to be filled out. So you almost need an advocate with you at every step of the health care, process. And, again, it didn’t used to be that way. And it doesn’t have to be that way.
But that’s what happens when people want something for nothing, when people want something but want somebody to pay for it. We used to pay our own doctors for everything, except for major medical, and everything was a lot cheaper when everything didn’t go through insurance.
And again, we were the customers. We were the people in charge. We controlled our health care and we had a very nice country back then. So I I don’t want to dwell on that.Â
JOHN DEMASI: It is a major problem that few people talk about it until it happens to them. Then people talk about it, but a lot of times it’s too late.
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP ENGINEERS SPECIAL LOW-TURNOUT MARCH 10 REFERENDUM TO BORROW $36 MILLION.
SETH GROSSMAN:Â Meanwhile, in Egg Harbor Township, a handful of voters approved borrowing $36 million dollars to basically fix up and improve exiting public school buildings. And when I say a handful of voters, I mean the vote was 1,471 “Yes” votes to 857 “No” votes. That’s out of 37,520Â voters in Egg Harbor Township.
JOHN DEMASI: Wow.
SETH GROSSMAN: So you had a total of 2,400 people turned out to vote in an election to borrow $36 million. And we know that not every registered voter votes in every election. But last November, roughly 18,000 people voted in the local election. Last Tuesday, March 10, only 2,400. So only only about 13% of the active voters of Egg Harbor Township voted in this important election to decide whether to borrow $36 million.
If this question were on the ballot last November, it never would have been approved. But this is exactly what the Egg Harbor Township Board of Education and its high paid consultants wanted. They spent a $100,000 roughly to have a special election on March 10. They could have had it last November without spending a dime, but they knew ifthey had it November with the regular 24,000 people voting, this thing would have been voted down by a landslide. But they hired these high paid consultants who said, if you want to borrow this money, you have to do the special election so that 90% of the voters won’t even know about this thing. And now you could slip it through. And and that’s the new normal.
I’ve been talking about this for the past two weeks. And I explained why this is a big problem. When you live in a condominium, you condominium association. And it makes a budget every year, and every owner pays an assessment based on the size of his or her unit.
And the Association members know that if the building needs a new roof every 20 years, they to set aside one 20th of the cost of a new roof every year. The elevator needing to be fixed or replaced every twelve years. The place has to be painted every eight years. And in Florida, if you don’t budget that money and you’re on the condominium board and a predictable repair like this needs to be made that you didn’t budget for, you can go to jail.Â
But in New Jersey, if your on City Council, Township Committee, or a School Board, its normal to let your buildings, your streets, and everything run into the ground. And instead of cracking down on this real misconduct, the state actually encourages, school boards and elected officials to let their buildings do this, and then borrow millions of dollars and put future generations of taxpayers into debt. Often the state offers extra aid to tthese districts to sweeten the pie and encourage them to borrow money.
Why do we get in these situations? Because everything in New Jersey is too expensive. We have all the union rules. We have all the environmental rules. We have all the diversity, equity, and inclusion rules. We have all the lawsuit rules. So it’s, it’s crazy, but this is normal. But as long as we, you know, instead of dealing with the problem, while we borrow the money and let our grandkids, pay for the problem, it’s not going to get any better, and we have to, talk about stuff like this.Â
JOHN DEMASI: You know, you’re mentioning this bond referendum. I didn’t know about it. This is the first time hearing about it. You know?Â
SETH GROSSMAN: And neither did most voters in Egg Harbor Township. That’s exactly how they designed it. Yes. So so, yeah, we’re talking about affordability. Well, these are the things that make things unaffordable. The fact that, that we we, you know, taxes are too high because, you know, the cost of of building or repairing everything is too high. And instead of dealing with the situation as to how we lower the cost, it’s just how do we borrow the money? How do we get the federal government to pay for it? How do we get the state government to pay for it? How do we get somebody else to pay for it instead of dealing with the problem?
STEVE YOUNG BRINGS $50 MILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST ATLANTIC CITY TAXPAYERS FOR NOT BEING PUNISHED FOR BLOCKING TRAFFIC ON JULY 4, 2020. “CIVIL RIGHTS” LAWS REWARD LAWYERS WHO BRING RIDICULOUS LAWSUITS.
Click Below Link for Video of Steve Young inviting followers to go “window shopping” after the “peaceful protest.”
Click Here for our previous post September 6, 2021 that predicted this:Â No Punishment Last Year? Why Wouldn’t Steve Young Extort Atlantic City Again This Year? – Liberty and Prosperity
SETH GROSSMAN: And speaking of what make things unaffordable, we now have the frivolous lawsuits. I don’t know if you read the article that, remember back in July 4, of 2020 Oh, yes. The the George Floyd riots. Yes. Well, two two things happened in Atlantic City. First, on Memorial Day, you had an absolute riot where about a 100 people broke into stores, broke the windows, looted the stores, went off with the stuff, fought with the police, created total chaos. And basically, the shopping center known as the Walk in Atlantic City has really never been the same. And and so, Marty Small, the mayor, and worked with the local police at a heroic job. They called the neighborhood people. They could they did interviews. They looked at video. Hours and hours of, gumshoe detective work. They identified the 95 people who who did that. They had them arrested and then suddenly nobody pressed the charges. Nothing happened. The cases disappeared, and, you know, there was no justice. And, it had to come from governor Murphy or the prosecutor at the time because in Trent, you had the identical thing. You had police cars set on fire. You had shops looted. You had windows broken. Nobody arrested. Nobody faced any consequence with that whatsoever. So, I I’m convinced that even though Atlantic City Police and Marty Small did a heroic job, somebody at the county and state level suppressed those cases. That was in May 2020.Â
Now, a couple months later, July 4 Weekend, Steve Young and six other guys deliberately wanted a confrontation. They had about about 30 followers. They started to block Atlantic Avenue. The police were accommodating. They then walked to try to block the Albany Avenue Bridge coming in.
Remember, this is the busiest weekend of the year. People in a summer resort have to make a year’s income in ten weeks. If you kill that July 4 Holiday Weekend, you kill the livelihood of thousands of people. You put thousands of people who depend on tourists in Atlantic City out of work. It’s the most awful thing you could do. But they didn’t care.
Then they got steered away from Albany Avenue so they go back uptown to try to block the Expressway Entrance. They actually went into the Expressway Entrance. And only after putting up with them for, like, two or three hours, the Atlantic City police arrest seven of them.
And once again, somebody stopped them from being prosecuted. They were never brought to trial until a couple of years later, and not a single witness was brought to testify against them. And so the charges were dismissed.
There was overwhelming evidence. They were blocking traffic. The did it deliberately. They ignored direct orders from police not to do it.
But for whatever reason, they were not prosecuted. The cases got dismissed. And now they filed papers to sue Atlantic City taxpayers for $50 million. Whether they win or not, Atlantic City taxpayers will pay a fortune in legal fees and insurance costs.
This is why nothing is affordable. Insurance is expensive, Lawsuits are expensive. Taxes are expensive. And this is part of it.
And then there’s something else that’s sort of related to this. I’ve been getting calls from a lot of local merchants about a guy in a wheelchair. He is going from one small store or restaurant to another, but he has no intention of being a customer. He’s a professional plaintiff.
If his wheelchair doesn’t completely fit through the door on his first try, or if there’s a bump or as step, or something not in complete compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, these small business owners get notices from a lawyer saying if you don’t pay us a few thousand dollars, this guy is going to sue you for a whole lot more. From what I heard, this guy is shaking down dozens of good local businesses.
Don’t blame lawyers. We did create the laws that reward people for bringing frivolous lawsuits. I was a lawyer, for more than fifty years. And if somebody came to me and said, I tried to go into this store with my wheelchair. And I had to wait a few minutes for somebody to come and help me. And during that time, I was inconvenienced, and I was embarrassed and my feelings got hurt. I want to sue the store.
Until you had these Civil Rightsl laws, lawyers didn’t take those caees. We would say, sure, your feelings got hurt, and maybe a jury might say you should get a few hundred dollars for your trouble. However, I’m going to have to do ten or fifteen thousand dollars worth of work get file a lawsuit and prepare for a trial. So it doesn’t make any sense to spent $10,000 to $15,000 to try to recover $200 if you win.
And it’s very possible you might lose. But even if you win, the jury is not going to give you more than $200 for a few minutes of inconvenience.
However, now we have a whole bunch of special civil rights laws that change all that. If you are part of what they call a “protected class”, the rules that apply to everybody else don’t apply to you. Who is in a protected class? If you are Black, Hispanic, disabled, gay, transgender. You know, if you get to fill out one of those special boxes every time you go to a doctor’s office, you are encouraged to encouraged to sue people over every trivial slight or inconvenience.
If anyone else wants to claim damages for “emotional distress”, they have to present all sorts of medical evidence. However, if you are part of a protected class, you just have to say your feelings got hurt. And you can claim that you should get double or triple regular damages as punitive damages. Ahere are certain special what they call civil rights, laws that say if you’re in a protected category, if you’re, disabled, or if you are a minority, or if you’re a woman, or if you’re gay, if you’re Hispanic, if you’re transgender, if you fall into one of these categories and somebody hurt your feelings, you are presumed to have, emotional distress. And you could sue for triple damages. You could sue for punitive damages. And even if you are not successful and even if the jury only gives you $50, your lawyer will get paid a 100% for doing $20,000 worth of work. And that’s why you see all these ridiculous cases where the cities pay $5,000, $10,000, $20,000. Businesses pay this money to settle cases because if they don’t settle the case, it goes to a trial. The the person suing them might only get $50, but the lawyer is gonna get 30 or 1,000 or $50,000. So you so, you know, everybody blames the lawyers. Everybody, blames the frivolous lawsuits. But the politicians make these laws. And and I thought it was very interesting that even though we’re doing absolutely nothing about this in America and and I remember each time I would run for public office, I’d talk about, how these frivolous lawsuits are making everything, so expensive and no one is doing anything about it. But my audience yawns and nobody even cares about it. But in Argentina, you know, Javier Molay, who’s really doing all the right stuff to turn Argentina around. Two weeks ago, he made a a a major change in the law that makes it easier to fire bad employees, easier to deal with all these lawsuits, where people, you know, where where where you’re not rewarded for being a victim and you’re not being rewarded for being a lawyer who represents a victim. So, you know, instead of, saying, well, everything’s unaffordable. We need a a government program to take money from someone else and give it to me. We actually have to talk about how we, you know, dealing with the problem. And, I I guess, the the final point, that, I’m thinking of when we talk about liberty and prosperity breakfast, the things that, you know, that that happened in our open discussions. I was at a business association meeting a couple days ago, and you had a representative from the, person who does the, what they call it the visitvisitatlanticcity.com or used to be the Atlantic City visitors bureau. And he was talking about the great job we’re doing because we’re spending $450,000 for an air show, to give a free air show. And we’re doing concerts for $50,000. And aren’t we wonderful? You know, look at look at, how much, peep how many people we’re bringing to Atlantic City. And he said the big problem, with Atlantic City is, 70% of the people who come to Atlantic City only spend one day in a hotel. And he said by having all these events, we’re gonna get people to stay longer. And, of course, at a business association, nobody asked questions, and everybody said, oh, that’s a great idea. But when you come to a liberty and prosperity meeting, we ask other questions like, where is the money coming from for the free air show and for the free concert and for the billboards on Times Square and all that stuff? Well, $7,000,000 is is coming from the casinos with CRDA. That was money the casinos are supposed to use to fix up their casinos. And, it’s going to have these, free air shows. Maybe people are not staying because the casinos are getting shabby because they don’t have the money to reinvest in their hotels. But here’s something even more important. When you check into a hotel in Atlanta City, and you think you’re paying $200 for the room, when you check out, you find out you’re paying for double the sales tax, a 13.6% hotel motel tax. On top of that, you pay a $3 per night state occupancy tax, a $2 casino hotel surcharge, a $2 tourist promotion fee, and then there’s a 45¢ sales tax on the taxes, plus a $3 tax on free parking. So do you know any people who come to Atlantic City and they say, gee, I’m disgusted with all these ridiculous charges. I’m gonna stay somewhere else. So, a lot of times when you have the the government says, well, look at all the tours we’re bringing with these programs. They don’t talk about who they’re chasing away. Anyway, we’ll be talking about this, every Saturday morning, liberty and prosperity, 09:30 to 10:30 at Sal’s coal fired, cafe. And, thank you very much for letting me just talk for twenty minutes. Okay. Set it for three hours. Okay. Thanks again, Seth.
