Pelosi Knows Better than the Rest of Us!

Despite the growing Tea Party movement, desite all the Town Hall Meetings of last August, despite last Tuesday's Democrat losses and despite yesteday's anti-health care demonstrations in Washington D.C. it is becoming clearly apparent that Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is going to try to force a vote on her “Affordable Heath Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) replete with its “public option”, oops, I mean “consumer option” sometime tomorow.

Ms. Pelosi apparently thinks the moment is ripe to use sheer political muscle to pass legislation reordering one sixth of the economy, with zero Republican support. The right mixture of "incentives" and Rahm Emanuel-style pressure, she believes, will bring enough Democrats to heel to vote for the bill.

For anyone who seriously believes that Speaker Pelosi and her democrat minions are not out to greatly expand governmental regulation over many aspects of our lives consider the fact that her 2,000 page tome on health care reform seeks not only to regulate health care insurance companies but small businesses as well. Consider the following.

Section 2572 of the bill (H.R. 3962) says,

“In the case of an article of food sold from a vending machine that – (I) does not permit a prospective purchaser to examine the Nutritional Facts Panel before purchasing the article or does not otherwise provide visible nutrition information at the point of purchase; and (II) is operated by a person who is engaged in the business of owning or operating 20 or more vending machines, “the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article.” (See page 1,515 of H.R. 3962 Section 2572 (H) (viii).

The National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA) has stated that the first year start up cost to its members who are generally small vendors, business owners and operators, would exceed $50 million dollars business with costs mounting further as labels or menus have to be updated with newly stocked products.

How does the small vendor owner/operator deal with this increased eglation? The increased operating costs will have to be passed along to the consumer.  Problem is, with the economy already deep in recession and unemployment nationwide exceeding 10%, fewer people are utilizing these vending machines. Thus the owner/operator will be left with two choices - assume the increased costs and go bankrupt, or, pass the increased cost along to an already shrinking customer base resulting in even fewer sales and then go bankrupt!
Bottom line, big government health care regulation will result in the small business owner vending machine operation becoming a thing of the past.
With our new administration up and running, it now appears that the more influence government can exert over our lives the happier Pelosi and her merry band of Washington D.C. progressive liberals will be given that they truly believe the American people are too ignorant to make decisions as trivial as a vending machine selection without governmental assistance (intrusion)!

By the way, anyone interested in trying to read this monstrosity of legislation can do so here link but keep in mind this is not the final bill the House will be voting on Saturday and there are still a large number of amendmenmts that will have to be appended to this bill, probably later today or tonight, which also means that no Congreeman voting tomorrow on this bill will have actualy read it.

Which reminds me, back on September 24, Pelosi told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that she was "absolutely" committed to putting the text of the final House bill online for 72 hours before the House votes...

TWS: Madam Speaker, do you support the measure to put the final House bill online for 72 hours before it's voted on at the very end?

PELOSI: Absolutely. Without question.

Unfortunately, as I previously indicated, the bill will not be finalized until all of the amendments are included which will not be until later this evening for tomorrow's vote which obviously sheds serious doubt on Ms. Pelosi's credibility.

Peter J. Mahon