OPEN LETTER TO VIRGINIA AND AMERICA ON HEALTHCARE

[Bobtail1911]

AN OPEN LETTER FROM A "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE" OF A RAMPANT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Several years ago, I was a very evil person. You see, the government was portraying telemarketers as the most evil thing to come on the scene since Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin; and I was a manager for a home improvement company's call center in Rockville Maryland.

Congress was busy spending our money in very unwise ways and at the same time allowing the special interests to loot the American treasury. Publicly, they were more concerned with stopping evil telemarketers. So they regulated us out of business with hefty fines and a "do not call" list.

Involving the federal government was not the solution. The fix was already available. If you get a call, the phone company can block it at your request. Now they charge, on my plan, money for anything over 6 blocked calls, but it can be done. Maybe the government could subsidize this effort to make it cost less to do, but no, they decided to eliminate an industry. But wait! They exempted themselves from this law! Curious?

What happened after they did this?

Well, my industry shrunk by 2/3rds because we lost access to customers. My company went from 10 crews to 4 crews. Volume being down raised our individual product costs as well. Many businesses in the country that relied on telemarketing went out of business. Millions lost their jobs! All when it could be done by blocking your calls directly from your phone company. Smart huh?

Now I know you might not want that call during dinner, but you could solve the problem by: 1. Not answering, 2. Answering and hanging up or 3. Answering and following up and getting the call blocked by your phone service.

Am I bitter? You better believe I am. I made a good living and my efforts made good livings for 40 plus people. All gone at the stroke of a pen. Replicated across America. Meanwhile I still get telemarketing calls from Congress! Other folks that call me during dinner speak in Spanish and try to sell me stuff in violation of the law, but I just hang up. What is up with that?

Fast forward several years. I now sell health insurance, and do my best to describe to folks what plans fit their needs and budget. When we get into the topic of cost, I always bring up how government intervention in this market has caused the cost of their insurance to sky rocket. Lets look at the facts.

"Medicare is a government service that helps provide health care for senior citizens and disabled U.S. citizens. Medicare is part of Social Security and does not provide total health care coverage. It is available to all U.S. citizens at age 65. Medicare coverage is broken into 2 distinct categories: Medicare Part A helps with hospital costs and Medicare Part B requires a monthly fee and is used to pay medical costs.

Medicare as we know it today came into existence in July of 1965 during the Johnson Administration. Franklin Roosevelt's administration was the first to address the subject of government assisted health care. During State of the Union speeches in 1943-1945, Roosevelt spoke about universal health care, and Americans being covered from "Cradle to Grave." Bills were introduced to Congress during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations; no bill ever got out of committee. Every Democratic administration from Roosevelt to Johnson lobbied and tried to introduce some sort of government assisted health coverage from 1935 until Medicare's passage in 1965." <from:http://hnn.us/articles/1583.html>

Now that doctors had a guaranteed payee on some bills those bills went up in price. FOR EVERYONE. It has been said that that one bill raised heath care costs by 400 percent in one year.

But wait! Congress tried to fix that mistake the next year and America was rewarded with another 400 percent increase in health care costs! Well from these efforts we got HMOs. HMO's limited health care so as to reduce costs. Everyone hated their HMOs and then we got PPOs to try to preserve doctors choice among other things.

But wait! Government forced the health care companies to put all sorts of things into their health insurance plans that the average consumer knew nothing about! This time the fault is a combination of State and Federal politicians getting in the way. As one example: How may folks are going to use mental health provisions? But many pay for it. If folks had complete choice there would be a major drop in the cost of health insurance.

But wait! Another factor would be legal costs for doctors and hospitals going out of whack because of burdensome court costs. This could be solved the way it was solve in Britain with the stroke of a pen. Losers pay all court costs. But then you have the Trail Lawyers Association among others who lobby against this. BUT DOES THIS NOT MAKE SENSE? If losers pay all costs you eliminate every frivolous court trail. All business wins in America.

So what does Government want to do for me today? Put me out of business once more so that you can go wait in line for your health insurance and I can learn a third trade in 10 years. Is it any wonder that Americans have lost faith in their Congress and President?

Last I checked they were spending our dollar into the toilet, allowing special interests to raid the treasury and lying to the American public that all will be ok if we just spend 1-4 trillion more.

It is time to put these folks out of office, if not in jail. Who will march with me? After all I will soon have lots of free time if they succeed. My job will be forfeited for America's newest Government run HMO [run by the same folks who brought you the Post Office, Amtrak, and Government Motors]


Always a Patriot First

Bobtail 1911


Metrohealthquote.com
Reformcongress.com

[zephyp]

Great letter, Mark. I've got some ideas for your third career. You interested?

[Bobtail1911]

I'm looking into picketing Moran's office.

Professional protester.

[VBshooter]

Excellent,

[meadmkr]

Bobtail1911

Lets agree to disagree on the topic of telemarketing....

Sorry that you were in a job that is not liked or respected by the average Joe, myself included. I personally feel that telemarketers are akin to laywers and understand the business need for them when used properly (as in when the customer reaches our or has a prior relationship with the company). Cold-calls simply turn me off to the sponsoring company and I take pride in the fact that I've filed over a dozen compaints against companies illegally calling my home! Your post seems to rationalize the 'need' for telemarketers but the DNCR is one of the few services that I explicitly use from the government. Now if they just made it applicable to all entities including 'polls', 'charities' and political campaigns! Why should the onus be on the person who pays the bill for the phone to block individual numbers? The DNCR simply puts out a flag that any good business should respect saying do not call me, I'll call you (if I need your services).

Nothing personal but just my view. Now if we can just get term limits and mandatory retirement on all federally appointed/elected offices!

Pro is to Con as Progress is to Congress

Semper Fi!
Chris