Happy Friday America! Officials trying to figure out a way to pull Detroit out of bankruptcy have a plan that could save them tens of millions of dollars: take all the retired city workers who are too young for Medicare and shove them out of their promised, cushy health care packages and into the Obamacare health insurance exchanges that we private citizens are expected to use. Similar plans to push public sector workers into Obamacare are already being discussed in other cash-poor cities, like Stockton, California, and Chicago. The reaction among Detroit’s public workers? One described it as “fear and panic.” That’s entirely understandable. But I can’t help wondering: how many Detroit city workers VOTED to reelect Obama and keep Obamacare? I’m guessing about 110 percent. Being forced into Obamacare to save some cash may be a particularly hard pill for Detroit city workers to swallow, in light of the news that the bankrupt city plans to go ahead with building a new $450 million, taxpayer-funded hockey arena. Considering that Detroit can’t even pay its police force or keep its street lights on, it seems a bit extravagant. But officials say that big development projects like that are needed to create jobs and entice people downtown. One problem: they already blew big money on other big downtown development projects while ignoring basic services, and that’s one of the main reasons why they’re bankrupt. It seems to me that at this point, if you want people to come to downtown Detroit, just telling them there are now police and street lights there might be a better inducement than a hockey arena.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 11:30:00 +0000