Government Health Care: Like Your Local Cable Monopoly on Steroids
Every adult who’s ever had a cable or telephone or power bill in their name has experienced The Call.
It can happen when something goes wrong, like the television signal dropping out or an inexplicable extra zero appearing in this month’s bill. It can happen when you’re simply trying to make a change to your service, like deleting a movie channel or adding a smartphone. But whatever the initial cause, we all know that sinking feeling when you’re dialing the number for “customer service.”
There’s the scripted introduction, the recitation of your vital statistics (“for security purposes”), the obvious disinterest as you explain your problem, and then the long wait while the phone rep “reviews your records.” And then, far more often than not, comes, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that.” That’s when you know for sure that you’re in for a long and annoying fight.
The level of pain inflicted by The Call (and all the calls that inevitably follow it) rises exponentially with the size and age and monopoly status of the company you’re dealing with. The satellite TV companies aren’t a cakewalk, but they’re still better than the local cable monopoly, and even the cable companies are easier to manage than any outfit that was formerly known as “the phone company” (yes, AT&T and Verizon, I’m talking to you). Deep within the DNA of the remaining telco providers still resides Lily Tomlin’s famous slogan, “We don’t care. We don’t have to.”
Even for all that, for all the frustration and incompetence and outright buffoonery you have to put up with when dealing with a cable or telephone monopoly, or (just for instance) an insurance company, you’re still talking about a private entity, a corporation. And as everybody in the blogging age knows, a corporation can be embarrassed. A corporation can be pressured. A corporation can be held up to public ridicule and shamed into living up to its promises, into making right the things its bureaucracy screws up. At the worst instance, a corporation can be sued.
But what if you’re not dealing with a corporation? What if the person on the other end of that line can’t be fired and couldn’t care less what you might say about their employer on Twitter?
In other words, what if you’re dealing with the government? Ever try to get the Postal Service to pay up on your destroyed but “insured” package? That was a little different from getting Comcast to fix your bill, wasn’t it?
That’s the future we’re all looking at if Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama manage to unload their misbegotten offspring of a “health care” bill onto the public.
Mr. Collier, for every point you make against the bureaucracy there will be an equal or greater number made in support of it. Thats what makes America great.
We have the freedom to fight ourselves until our nation is a wasteland.
Obamacare is a done deal.
Obama’s will will be done.
Sit down and shut up.
Will,I’m afraid this FUBARED of a bill is going to happen and with all the new bureaucracies the potential for corruption and political retribution is ever present.
Government running health care is going to have an impact on the number of people wanting to go into the profession. As a patient we can all imagine what it will be like trying to get something approved, why would anyone want to spend the number of years it takes to be an advanced practice nurse or a physician to be told that someone else will take care of the decision-making? This is such an opportunity wasted, tort reform and portability would have had bipartisan support and would have been real reform.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
–Ronald Reagan
(Not to mention, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”)
Privacy and Choice, aren’t they great? Wait a second, where did they go? What happened? I was told for years, and on different issues, how important they were. Was I deceived? Is it possible the NY Times and other media nabobs and the Dems lied to me, that it was all bull—- ??
Not for my sake, but what are all the lost little lambs who breath when the above gods of wisdom tell them to breath, going to do?
But first they’ll have to think about it, so maybe there’s no problem after all.
After Katrina, the US Post office decided I’d moved. (I Hadn’t) I had 18 months of them telling everyone (IRS, Insurance companies, banks, etc) that I’d moved, and in some cases wanting “proof” that I’d moved back so I could pay my bills. It finally took US Congressman (now Gov.) Jindal to get it squared away.
If the government can’t even deliver a piece of paper, why should I trust them with my liver?
Hey, suckers, YOU and yours will be forced to use the new and wondeful OBAMACARE.
When you can’t get medical care because of the long lines and incompetent bureaucrats, tell me how you will be enjoying it then.
The only pleasure I get from this whole healthcare debacle is the fact that Obama’s supporters are going to get just as terrible care as everyone else.
How will they be liking that hope and change then?
I take your point, but AT&T customer service, for me, has always been terrific — WAY exceeds what I’d expect (& what I used to get from Cingular which was about what you describe).
#1
Yes, Sir, this is what we do expect from the commienazis.
But we will be careful to oppose them and roll them back without falling to their level of in-humanness and barbarianism.
The painful lesson that we as a people are learning is in a certain way a vaccine.
America never received a shot of domestic totalitarianism before and now that it has… it will proceed towards the future with more self-confidence.
This spiritual night of hate, class-warfare, and violation of all principles will be remembered and will be a permanent source of strength in the defense of Freedom.
And, by the way, not Obama’s nor anyone else’s will “will be done”, instead the Will of God Who Is Infinite Love will be done.
LeighB…Exactly.
I have BrightHouse here in the Tampa area. They are excellent in all ways when it comes to service (cable tv, internet) and customer service (call in and repair). Not all cable companies are k-rap.
Federalism is Freedom!
Too many, way too many, believe that once this bill passes the war is lost. It’s simply not true. While we conservatives need to continue to wage this battle at the federal level, I believe that the real action will be at the state level. Any form of the Democrats health “reform” bill is simply unconstitutional and can be defeated by the states if those states reassert their Constitutional rights under the 10th Amendment. So while you’re working hard to elect conservatives and to defeat the socialists work equally hard to do the same at the state level.
Federalism is Freedom! http://www.redstate.com/derkrieger/2009/12/28/federalism-is-freedom/
I can’t stop laughing. Yes, health care is not currently run by big corporations, you genius.
Ive never EVER met an efficient bureaucrat. The typical answer I get is along the lines of “its not my problem”. Sort of reminds one of Obamas response to the christmas day attempt by the black nigerian mooselimb. Its not my problem,his aides said. We dont want to make him mad by “inconviencing” him. And if anyone think the attack on CHRISTMAS, the holiest of Christian holidays was a coincidence, think again.
Yeah? And the current quality of medical care for you, your friends and relatives, especially regarding timely and accurate diagnoses — especially when emergency room visits are involved — has improved over the years, how? And the costs for what you get?
Yeah, I can hardly wait to enjoy the same level of service that an illegal alien gets. Because, when I think about it, that is what I aspired to my whole life. That is why I work hard, save my money, get up early.
But, look on the bright side, it will suck equally for everyone. That way, when I have lots of spare time waiting for treatment, I can browse the parking lot for cars with Obama/Biden stickers on them so that I can maybe dispense some suckage to them as well. After all, why should they be all nice and shiny?
Today the trolls sound more stupid than usual, we could call this a kind of miracle (upside-down of course, like everything else in the trolls’ world).
Yes, bringing the defects of the corporate world to the level of the state means losing the only way that we have to correct the defects of the corporate world (i.e., COMPETITION); and at the political level it has a name, and that name is FASCISM.
C’mon trolls, you don’t need to be PERFECTLY stupid.
Richard@16: That’s the rub. It will not be equal for everyone. The elite, political class and government officals-pols, and government bureaucrats will still get their own health care. You don’t really believe that the messiah would stoop to the same level of health care for himself and his families that he is proposing for us, do you???
Do you think Soros or Lewis (Progressive Ins.) or SKG and all of Hollyweird will get the same health care as us? Think Diane Sawyer would wait in lines for her mammograms like regular folks?
Trolls and messiah sycophants think they will be getting something for free. Wait until their bank account is charged for their visit- and I mean charged!!! Wait until moho’s medical records are available to his next (?) employer and they say don’t apply. Wait until they find out moho drinks alcohol or smokes or does drugs at his next mandatory and perhaps unannounced physical….and the government then too knows he does drugs…. UH OH!! See moho no more privacy.
Wait until the sheeple find out that not only does the government tell them where to live (sect 8) what to buy (food stamps), what jobs they will take (welfare), and that the government has determined that they are overweight or face taxation as incentive (health care)…
All your projection about Bush’s invasion of privacy will seem like child’s play with this marxist administration… YOU LOSE.
Well, you assume alot. First off, there is no such thing as government run health care because it has not even been created yet. And I do not see any government run health care plan under any current legislation being considered. So there is no point in your curlers popping out as far as I can see. Dont you agree?
Poor Citizen: You already know the answer to your question. Health care is already partially run by government regulations, mandates and Medicare to the point of disabling free market functioning. And it will be, inevitably, completely run by government given the mechanisms put in place by this legislation.
The bill is a politically-driven, over-reaction to some problems in health care that could easily be fixed by a much simpler bill that recognizes the importance of personal freedoms in our culture and also recognizes the unsuitability of government to run anything adequately, fairly or efficiently. Forget the post office – can you provide even one example that refutes this?
This is popping everyone’s curlers unless they are ideologically blinded or just not able or willing to connect the dots.
The good news is that this stupid bilge of a Law will be available for us to read by Spring. At that time, I plan to confront all of my liberal “friends” who REPEATEDLY LIED TO ME for months. I wrote down their lies. Like “you like your plan, you will keep your plan”, “your premiums won’t go up”, “illegals won’t be covered”, and on and on, as if I was born last night.
I don’t mind a debate, but I absolutely DESPISE being lied to. Especially when the lies are for the purpose of installing an OPPRESSIVE Government that will keep its boot on my neck and those of my children, for the rest of my days. I consider it an insult of the highest order, and one for which there will be consequences. Our system of governance relies on the CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED, and I for one reject these coercive, punitive, unfair and confiscatory conditions. I DO NOT CONSENT TO ANY OF THIS.
No, there will be no getting along, here. As you have made me miserable and impoverished and insulted, so shall you be made.
“We the People”
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Those stirring 52 words of the Preamble to America’s Constitution, which has been called the most perfect political document in the history of man, are words which many of us have forgotten and which many of our leaders have abandoned.
They assert the rights of “the people” to seek perfection in our system of governing and government even though the framers understood perfection was beyond the reach of man. They call for justice and peace within our borders, security from foreign invasion, and the well-being of our people. They seek freedom now and freedom for our future citizenry under the guidelines set forth in our Constitution.
Drafted in 1787 and adopted in 1789 by the 13 original states, in the year Anno Domini 2010, 221 years later, we have lost our way.
Singer Ray Stevens has captured . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1415)
If only–this adm. would fight the war on terrorism, like they push this health care, the war on terror would be over. But then again were not muslims, so I guess we are the enemy. Hope @ change.
Pelosi is floating the idea of anti-trust legislation. It’s a farce.
Leiberman and Nelson will not allow legislation like that to make it through.
Let’s say that your nightmarish idea of health care CUSTOMER SERVICE comes to fruition, is it going to improve under a Republican administration?
It will get worse, for the obvious reasons.
So, are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
25 vivo — It’s not about which party is in office; it’s how the industry is structured, how competitive it is, what regulations exist, etc. If you want things to improve, there needs to be more competition and there need to be fewer middlemen between the customers and the providers of the services.
i lived in Mass with universal coverage, and I never had any problems with customer service or anything else.
25. Vivio: “Let’s say that your nightmarish idea of health care CUSTOMER SERVICE comes to fruition, is it going to improve under a Republican administration?”
AS has been happening for most of the last 100 years, “progressives” (an Orwellian term if there ever was one) have been creating programs that are unsustainable, irresponsible, and destructive. Nobody can make them work, themselves included. Blaming the GOP for not being able to coral the cat heard created by the left is pure nonsense.
America’s Elitists and Obamacare
Ever get the feeling that those people in Congress just don’t get it?
I don’t just mean they don’t get the idea of why they are there in the first place, to represent their various constituencies and to create legislation that serves the best interests of the nation. They surely don’t get that.
I mean that, for the most part, although they technically represent us, they seem different, above it all, as if they exist in another sphere, on another plane.
Every two or six years they descend to the commoners’ level to troll for votes from the democratic masses, when they rub elbows with the hoi polloi, glad-hand some few select constituents, bestow uninvited, germ-laden kisses on a few babies to demonstrate they’re just your average guys and gals, and then probably lather on the Purell and gargle Listerine after they’re ushered into their limos.
Infatuated with wealth, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “The rich are different from you and me” to his sometimes buddy Ernest Hemingway who gently corrected him with the rejoinder, “Yes, they have more money.”
Both writers were correct.
With some few exceptions, our elected leaders also have more money than the rest of us and, yes, they are different from you and me as a result.
Recently, CNBC featured a slideshow report on “The Richest Members of the US Congress” based on research conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics which determined that there were 237 millionaires in Congress, out of 435 members of the House and 100 senators: http://bit.ly/1ficst
My math-challenged brain computes that 44.3% of our D.C. representatives have a net worth above 7 figures, many vastly above 7 figures, a few well above 9 digits. Of the remaining 298 congresspeople, I think it would be fair to guesstimate . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1422)