PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE • THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019 • WWW.POST-GAZETTE.COM
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ALMANAC
On this day, March 28

1898 The U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruled that Wong, who was born in the United States to Chi­nese im­mi­grants, was an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen.

1932 To pro­vide em­ploy­ment for those in need, Pitts­burgh be­gan to ex­tend the Mount Wash­ing­ton Road proj­ect. Six sta­tions were set up for free food dis­tri­bu­tion.

1978 The Schen­ley High School Spar­tans won the Penn­syl­va­nia Class AAA bas­ket-

ball cham­pi­on­ship, de­feat­ing Leb­a­non High School, 51-50, at Her­shey.

1979 Amer­ica’s worst com­mer­cial nu­clear ac­ci­dent oc­curred with a par­tial melt­down in­side the Unit 2 re­ac­tor at the Three Mile Island plant near Har­ris­burg.

Some items are from Ste­fan Lorant’s “Pitts­burgh: The Story of an Amer­i­can City” (dig­i­tal.li­brary.pitt.edu/​chro­nol­ogy).

— Com­piled by Rick Nowlin

To­day’s birth­days: Author Mario Var­gas Llosa, 83. Coun­try singer Reba McEntire, 64. Rap­per Salt (Salt-N-Pepa), 53. Ac­tor Vince Vaughn, 49. Ac­tress Julia Stiles, 38. Singer Lady Gaga, 33. 

Thought for to­day: “Those who say they give the pub­lic what it wants be­gin by un­der­es­ti­mat­ing pub­lic taste and end by de­bauch­ing it.”

— T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)

Random acts of kindness

Young mo­tor­ist res­cues
’dam­sel in dis­tress’

Be­cause of a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, I was driv­ing alone with­out a cell phone or GPS on March 9 and got lost in Fox Chapel.

As I stood dis­ori­ented on the berm of a dark road, car lights blink­ing, each ve­hi­cle that whizzed by left me feel­ing more des­o­late and dis­traught.

At last, a young man stopped. On learn­ing my plight, he led me to my des­ti­na­tion. After clear di­rec­tions on how to re­trace my route, he drove off. I re­gret that I shied away from ask­ing his name and could not think of a way to re­pay him. I apol­o­gize and wish the scene could be re­vis­ited with a re­writ­ten script.

A few days later, I drove back to that area by day­light but could not find the heav­ily trav­eled T-in­ter­sec­tion where I ended up by mis­take. I have no idea where I was or how I got there.

Young peo­ple some­times are ma­ligned as be­ing self-ab­sorbed and non-car­ing. This an­gel-knight (name un­known) who res­cued an el­derly “dam­sel in dis­tress” is proof to the con­trary. He is a credit to his fam­ily and fel­low Fox Chapel res­i­dents.

I hope he reads my sin-

cere trib­ute to his Ran­dom Act of Kind­ness.

PATRICIA ROSSI

Ar­nold

Kind­ness of women
will be paid for­ward

On a re­cent Mon­day, my wife and I were din­ing at Chili’s in the Water­works Mall. Two women were seated at the ta­ble be­side us and we be­gan to talk.

I men­tioned that my wife and I are empty nesters and en­joy din­ing out. I use a wheel­chair. One of the la­dies men­tioned that she had been in a wheel­chair for two years.

After they left, our server in­di­cated that they had paid our check with the ex­cep­tion of the tip. We’re writ­ing here hop­ing that these women see this let­ter. We just want to say thank you very much. We re­ally ap­pre­ci­ated their Ran­dom Act of

Kind­ness and in­tend to pay it for­ward.

DENNIS and
BOBBI IURLANO

Sharps­burg

Help­ful neigh­bors
clear up­rooted tree

Dur­ing the high winds of Feb. 24, a beau­ti­ful pine tree that was in my yard up­rooted and fell across the road. Thank God it missed the power lines and any traf­fic.

It did, how­ever, block both lanes of traf­fic. A neigh­bor called 911 and the lo­cal po­lice came. After get­ting per­mis­sion from the po­lice of­fi­cer, this won­der­ful neigh­bor and sev­eral oth­ers took over get­ting the tree cleared from the road so that traf­fic could re­sume.

Sev­eral neigh­bors di­rected traf­fic — it was on a bend —  un­til the tree could be cleared. I don’t even

know who some of them are, but I want to thank them very much.

Spe­cial thanks to Chuck, who used a chain­saw, and Alan, who helped, along with oth­ers, in­clud­ing some fire­fight­ers, to drag the limbs into my yard.

Your hard work is much ap­pre­ci­ated. God bless each and ev­ery one of you.

MARION BROOKS

Re­serve

Po­lice of­fi­cer bright­ens
Val­en­tine’s Day lunch

My hus­band and I en­joyed our lunch at Eat’n Park on Val­en­tine’s Day. When we fin­ished, the wait­ress in­formed us that the check, as well as the tip, had been paid by the Pitts­burgh po­lice of­fi­cer who had been seated with sev­eral other peo­ple at a nearby ta­ble.

He had wished us a good day as he left the restau­rant. What a lovely Ran­dom Act of Kind­ness. We im­me­di­ately passed it on by pay­ing for the lunch of a nearby ta­ble.

NANCY CLIFTON

Scott

Has some­one done you right? Send your Ran­dom Act of Kind­ness to page2@post-ga­zette.com, or write to Port­fo­lio, Post-Ga­zette, 358 North Shore Drive, Suite 300, Pitts­burgh, PA 15212.

Corrections & clarifications
Copyright 2019, PG Publishing Co. Published daily and Sunday by PG Publishing Co. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a federally registered trademark and service mark. All-access digital plus 5-day home delivery for $8.50 a week; All-access digital plus Sunday home delivery for $5.50 a week. — Call 1-800-228-NEWS (6397) or go to post-gazette.com/pgdelivery
If you have a correction and cannot reach the responsible reporter or editor, please call the office of Sally Stapleton, managing editor, at 412-263-1858.
Sun-Telegraph/The Pittsburgh Press
John Robin­son Block, chair­man
Lisa Hurm, vice-pres­i­dent and gen­eral man­ager
Tracey DeAn­gelo, chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer
William A. Southern, director of finance
Robert Weber, di­rec­tor of op­er­a­tions
Wil­liam Cot­ter, se­nior di­rec­tor of ad­ver­tis­ing
Adam Bush, di­rec­tor of ad­ver­tis­ing and dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives
Brian Rossi, di­rec­tor of dig­i­tal prod­uct de­vel­op­ment
James Hilston/Post-Gazette
Trump says GOP will have replacement ready if court strikes down Obamacare

WASHINGTON — Despite fail­ing to pro­pose a plan of his own for years, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump again Wed­nes­day claimed Re­pub­li­cans will have a re­place­ment pro­posal ready if the Supreme Court strikes down the 2010 health care law.

“If the Supreme Court rules that Obam­ac­are is out, we’ll have a plan that is far bet­ter than Obam­ac­are,” he told re­port­ers dur­ing an un­re­lated Oval Of­fice event.

But that pledge is seen as rep­re­sent­ing a trend, and it con­jures bad mem­o­ries for Re­pub­li­cans of their failed 2017 ef­fort to re­peal the Af­ford­able Care Act.

That’s be­cause Mr. Trump for years has prom­ised what he of­ten has said would be a “very spe­cial” re­place­ment for the Barack Obama-era law. But Mr. Trump has pre­sented no such plan to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and con­gres­sio­nal Re­pub­li­cans never sent one to his desk when they con­trolled the House and Senate dur­ing his first two years in of­fice.

White House press aides Wed­nes­day did not im­me­di­ately re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment.

The pres­i­dent’s lat­est health care state­ment came as a se­nior Re­pub­li­can of­fi­cial who spoke anon­y­mously told The Wash­ing­ton Post that House Minor­ity Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., urged Mr. Trump to hold off on push­ing for a court-or­dered de­struc­tion of Obam­ac­are — ad­vice the

pres­i­dent ul­ti­mately ig­nored.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to press for a court-or­dered dem­o­li­tion of Obam­ac­are came af­ter a heated meet­ing Mon­day in the Oval Of­fice, The New York Times was told by an of­fi­cial speak­ing on con­di­tion of an­o­nym­ity, where the pres­i­dent’s act­ing chief of staff Mick Mul­vaney and oth­ers convinced Mr. Trump that he could do through the courts what he could not do through Con­gress: re­peal his pre­de­ces­sor’s sig­na­ture achieve­ment.

On Cap­i­tol Hill, Re­pub­li­cans seemed ini­tially shocked by the Mon­day move against the en­tire law. In the days since, there has been no move­ment to­ward a GOP re­place­ment.

Asked about Mr. Trump’s com­ments Wed­nes­day, Lamar Al­ex­an­der, R-Tenn., chair of the Senate Com­mit­tee on Health, Ed­u­ca­tion, La­bor and Pen­sions, could not yet point to such a broad re­place­ment plan to be put on the ta­ble. But he sug-

gested there would be quick ac­tion to pro­tect pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions.

“The one thing I’m sure of, if that should hap­pen — and we’re cer­tainly a long way from there — and if [it] had any ef­fect on pro­tect­ing Amer­i­cans with pre-ex­ist­ing health con­di­tions, there would be an im­me­di­ate plan to re­place that,” Mr. Al­ex­an­der said.

Be­fore Mr. Al­ex­an­der’s com­ments, Mr. Trump re­turned to his usual rhet­o­ric by call­ing the law a “di­sas­ter.”

“The pre­mium is too high and de­duct­ible is hor­ri­ble,” he said dur­ing an un­re­lated event in the Oval Of­fice. “It’s far too ex­pen­sive for the peo­ple, not only for the coun­try.”

The ad­min­is­tra­tion’s move on the law known as Obam­ac­are came as the pres­i­dent and some aides were ap­par­ently ea­ger to seize on per­ceived mo­men­tum from At­tor­ney Gen­eral Wil­liam Barr’s sum­mary of spe­cial coun­sel Robert Mueller’s re­port, which found no crim­i­nal con­spir-

acy be­tween Mr. Trump’s 2016 cam­paign and Rus­sia but did not ex­on­er­ate him on ob­struc­tion of justice.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion on Mon­day night said in a fil­ing with a fed­eral ap­peals court that the en­tire 2010 health care law should be struck down af­ter the ef­fec­tive re­peal of the so-called “in­di­vid­ual man­date.”

The move is a cu­ri­ous one po­lit­i­cally, GOP and Demo­cratic po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gists say, be­cause it po­ten­tially brings into ques­tion health cov­er­age for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans just as the pres­i­dent’s 2020 re-elec­tion cam­paign is kick­ing into gear. It also comes as se­nior Dem­o­crats like House Minor­ity Whip James E. Cly­burn are call­ing on his party to fo­cus on so-called “pock­et­book is­sues” like health care.

What’s more, part of the Dem­o­crats’ 2018 mid­terms pitch was to keep the 2010 law on the books but fix parts that are flawed.

“I al­ways think of Mr. Cly­burn and [Rep.] John Lewis [of Geor­gia] when they quote Mar­tin Luther King, when he talks about, ‘Of all the in­justices, the most in­hu­mane is the in­equal­ity of health care,’” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tues­day. “And the Depart­ment of Justice be­comes the Depart­ment of In­justice when it wants to tear down health care ben­e­fits. Be­cause as Dr. King said, ‘People could die.’”

Mr. McCarthy has com­plained pri­vately to do­nors that the GOP at­tempt to gut Obam­ac­are was the main rea­son the party lost at least 40 House seats in last year’s mid­term elec­tions.

So far, Senate Ma­jor­ity Leader Mitch McCon­nell, R-Ky., has said lit­tle pub­licly re­gard­ing Mr. Trump’s move.

By John T. Bennett
CQ-Roll Call
Republicans seem shocked at move against entire law
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
Attending a meeting last week in Florida are, from left, President Donald Trump, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan.