As we watch the significant failures of our government in so many ways, here's something to consider: You can't fire the government when it sucks. There is no alternative. Don't like the service or the competency of Wal-mart? You can go to Target. Don't like the service or the competency of the cable company? You can get satellite. My mom is a health care provider. A bureaucrat in Washington misfiled all of her Medicare reimbursement paperwork. To get the $2,000 they owe her for services rendered, she has to do the following: 1) Resubmit her EIN. 2) Resubmit her personal SSN. 3) Fill out 32 pages of paperwork documenting what paperwork was lost (I'm not kidding). 4) Wait 4 - 6 weeks for a decision on whether the paperwork she's submitting to get access to her paperwork that was misfiled is filed correctly or not. 5) If it is, then she has to wait for them to refile it correctly. 6) Then she gets to find out whether they will give her any of the money she is due for the services she performed. To get this far in the process, she had to wait on hold for 3 hours yesterday. Welcome to single-payer, government-managed health care. Why anyone would vote for that is beyond me. |