22 The Courier sun • november 21, 2013 for breaking news visit www.couriersun.com House approves ObamaCare insurance fix BY LIAM LA GUERE [email protected] President Barack Obama and the Republican-led House of Representatives have announced solutions to help frustrated THE COURIER/File photo Councilmember Mark Weprin is the top Queens candidate vying for City Council Speaker. SPEAKER RACE TO REPLACE QUINN BY TERENCE M. CULLEN [email protected] It’s off to the races for six legislators looking to become the next city council speaker. Councilmembers Melissa Mark- Viverito, Inez Dickens, Dan Garodnick, James Vacca, Anabel Palma and Mark Weprin are vying to replace incumbent-Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is term-limited. Quinn was voted to lead the council, the city’s de facto second most powerful office, in 2005. Weprin, the top Queens candidate in the race, was elected to the council in 2009 after 15 years in the Assembly. He is campaigning on a promise that he will not run for higher office and is not term-limited in 2017. “I am not running for the mayor of the City of New York,” Weprin told The Courier. “I can spend all my time being the best speaker I can be. I think one thing that has been lacking in previous speakers is they have all been running for higher office.” Mark-Viverito, an ally to Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, is considered a top contender for the seat. Candidates have been taking part in forums throughout the city, though councilmembers will internally vote on a new speaker January 4. people who have received cancellation notices from their insurance providers. Many insurance holders got notified of the cancelled policies because the plans do not cover all of the essential health benefits of the Affordable Care Act, which includes prescription drugs and doctor’s visits. “I completely get how upsetting this could be for a lot of Americans, particularly after insurances from me that if they had a plan that they like they could keep it,” Obama said. “And to those Americans I hear you loud and clear.” Obama’s fix allows insurers to extend plans that would otherwise be cancelled to October 2014. It also forces companies to tell people what benefits their plans do not cover and how a policy on the new health care marketplace could help them save money. The Houses’ solution was to approve the “Keep Your Health Plan” bill, which would allow people with existing plans to keep their coverage, without future limitation. About 107,000 people selected new plans from the marketplace from October 1 to November 2. But since the marketplace started accepting purchases there have been many issues with Obamacare. People have complained about website crashes and other issues on the federal website, healthcare.gov, and the health care reform legislation was at the center of a congressional stalemate that shutdown the government for more than two weeks and nearly caused the country to default on its debt. Legally Speaking By: Scott Baron, Attorney at Law THE GO AHEAD Q: Last fall, I rode my bicycle to the entrance of a street. Before starting some repairs, the City was in the process of setting up warning cones, to close off both lanes of the road to vehicular traffic. I asked the supervisor if I could ride through. “Go ahead,” he said. I did, and struck a large pothole. A: The courts have an old rule that government action, if discretionary, may not be a basis for tort liability. Even if you establish all the elements of a negligence claim, the City can avoid liability if it proves that saying ‘go ahead’ involved the exercise of discretionary authority and did not involve a special duty. Your lawyer would like to say that the supervisor’s failure to warn you, and his waving you into a place of danger, were integrally related to the pothole repair undertaken by the City as the owner of the road, and took place not in a truly governmental capacity. The City will reply that, at the time of your accident, the repair work had not begun. The supervisor was engaged in traffic control, which is a classic example of a governmental function undertaken for the protection and safety of the public pursuant to the general police powers. Thus, the City would be entitled to governmental-function immunity – because the specific act or omission that caused your injuries was the supervisor’s discretionary decision to allow you to proceed, and not the City’s proprietary function in maintaining the roadway. If I understand you correctly, when you encountered the supervisor, he was not at the entrance of the road to repair potholes; the repair was to take place later, and perhaps some distance away. Controlling traffic is a classic governmental function that brings with it governmental immunity. By all means, take these facts to an attorney, but don’t be surprised if he or she is concerned about governmental immunity. Advertorial The law responds to changed conditions; exceptions and variations abound. Here, the information is general; always seek out competent counsel.This article shall not be construed as legal advice Copyright © 2013 Scott Baron & Associates, P.C. 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