Saturday, June 30, 2012

Quiz

What is the connection between this picture and the news story below?










11 comments:

O Docker said...

Both were grand projects based on a wing and a prayer?

Keep Reaching said...

Both are a 21st century solution to an age old problem.

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

I'll side with Reaching: Both are a [start to] 21st century solution to an age old problem. The ultimate solution has to be Medicare for all, paid for by ending of all ground wars in Asia.

Tillerman said...

Well, you are all right I suppose, but there is actually a much more specific connection between these two "grand projects", the wing sail and the health care individual mandate. If nobody gets the answer in a day or two I'll give some clues.

Captain Roger & XO said...

I would assume that both were expected to be rejected by the appropriate court (racing authority) and both were accepted

Tillerman said...

That's a pretty good answer Roger, but not what I was thinking of.

OK. Here's a HUGE clue. The connection is something to do with the origins of these two projects - the AC45 wing sail and the legislation to introduce the health care individual mandate.

Keep Reaching said...

Does it have something to do with Rhode Island and John Chafee - the well known liberal politician who originally introduced the individual health care mandate in 1993 in the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act, following the idea put forth in the wildly liberal think tank - Heritage Foundation - in a 1989 article "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans" ?

Tillerman said...

You are getting very close Keep Reaching.

O Docker said...

Following Keep Reaching's lead, I kept reaching.

Mr. Google reminds us that John Chafee's son, Lincoln Chafee, has also found his way to the Rhode Island governor's office from which he's led the charge to bring the AC World Series to Newport. Is that the missing link we're looking for?

Tillerman said...

Very ingenious O Docker. It is true that there are a lot of Rhode Island connections involved here. In fact the Chafee and Chafee family connection between the AC World Series and the Health Care Individual Mandate is a pretty good answer. But it's not the the one I was thinking of.

But you also are on the right track. You just have the wrong family.

Tillerman said...

OK. I don't think anyone is going to get this...

Christine Ferguson is a distinguished lawyer, ranked as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. She served as counsel and deputy chief of staff to the late U.S. Senator John H. Chafee from 1981-1995 in which role she was the first person to introduce the concept of an "individual mandate” for health care into any legislative proposal in America. She later served as Commissioner of Public health in Massachusetts under Governor Romney when he introduced the individual mandate into the health care law of that state.

Scott Ferguson has been a member of ORACLE Racing’s design team since 2007, and manages all the design and engineering work done on the wing sail. In this role he had a heavy hand in designing the wing for the AC45.

Scott and Christine are brother and sister.

The day that the Supreme Court ruled that the health care individual mandate was constitutional (under the taxation clause as originally envisaged by Christine according to an interview she gave that week) was also the day that the AC45s were racing for the first time in Scott's home waters of Narragansett Bay. Quite a day for the Ferguson family!

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