Call Their Bluff!

So, we've gone from "single payer" to "public option" to "cooperatives" to....whatever the conservatives want.

I believe that the country is in favor of strong, radical, health care reform. The noisy conservatives are a minority who whine a lot but wield few votes.

We have a democratic President with majorities in both House and Senate.

If us progressives can't have our every wet-dream fantasy turned into a reality now, then when?

Why can't the President force reform and progressive legislation down the throats of the minority like Bush did? Why are we forced to live with this President Bush III with the only improvement being better oratory? Where is the hope and change we were promised?

Call their bluff! Pass a strong single payer bill...and dare the republicans to filibuster it. Unmask these unpatriotic assholes. The same for republicans masquerading as democrats.

Let the public see who these pricks are who are holding back reform. Let daylight shine and expose these idiots.

If not now, then when?

Healthcare

Insurance is, in essence, buying protection against risk.

Your house could burn down....so you pay someone to hedge that risk. The insurance company goes out and invests the premium you pay and makes a profit.

The insurance company, in turn, manages its own risk by A) applying actuarial science to charge premiums that co-relate to the amount of risk posed and B) By entering into re-insurance agreements with other insurance companies.

While this insurance model works just fine for high-deductible indemnity type insurance polices for health, it's a HORRIBLE model for providing healthcare to a population.

An insurance company - an entity in the business of hedging against risk - has no business being in the business of keeping people healthy. And it shows - insurance companies have done an awful job of providing care to the ENTIRE population of this country.

Sure, there's been a terrible lack of regulation and oversight...but insurance companies are doing, by and large, what a for-profit insurance company must do to remain in business....minimize its exposure to risk by refusing to take on the riskiest "customers" who are most likely to incur large claim payments.

The cure for our national healthcare sickness is a complete paradigm shift. Take the insurance companies out of the healthcare business. Anything less simply won't do.

Instead of employers paying healthcare insurance premiums...tax them, much like they are taxed for social security. Use that money to set up a trust fund to pay for healthcare. Take the medicare and medicaid systems and merge them into the same trust fund.

This healthcare tax can pay for the cost care for the gainfully employed.

For the people who are unemployed or retired, therefore not eligible for employer healthcare tax contribution, the government picks up the tab....much like the current medicare and medicaid

So, now that we have this HUGE pool of money in a trust fund...invest it wisely to ensure that inflation doesn't have a negative effect on the assets being held...and even look for a modest rate of return above the rate of inflation.

Disallow, by statute, Congress from raiding the trust fund to cover shortfalls elsewhere in the budget

At the same time, set up an "exchange" where people can pick from a list of healthcare "plans" offered by private companies acting as benefit administrators...not "insurance" companies.

The government negotiates rates with these benefit administration companies directly...and pays them directly.

The benefit administrators are allowed a small, token, statutory profit above their costs for care provided. No huge CEO bonuses, no downtown corner window offices. These companies should also not be allowed to refuse or drop coverage based on the existing health condition of individuals.

The companies can compete for business by offering value-added benefits, wider range of coverage offered - for example some may choose to pay for colored contact lenses, not just the basic ones etc. Or they can compete based on how large their coverage footprint is....how many doctors or hospitals they offer coverage at. In addition, the companies can sell "cadillac" coverage....for items not covered nor considered medically essential...like fake breasts, or teeth whitening.

At the same time, do some meaningful, rational "tort reform". If you wanted bigger tits, for example, and the doctor fucks up...you get a new set of tits from a different doctor. However, if you're a 28 year old father of two who gets maimed for life due to doctor error....you get a few million bucks to make sure your family doesn't become destitute.

Buy drugs where they are cheap - Canada, India, Brazil, South Africa, Israel. Limit patents on life saving medicine that jacks up the prices and reduces competition from generics.

Tell me why this wouldn't work.

Dear Dan

August 3, 2009

Daniel R. Hesse
Chief Executive Officer
Sprint Nextel Corp.
6200 Sprint Parkway
Overland Park, KS 66251

Dear Dan:

As you know, along with its quarterly earnings report Sprint recently announced that in the same period a quarter of a million customers left your company for greener pastures. When you report an equally dismal number of subscriber line cancellations in the next reporting period, I want you to know that ten of those lines will be mine.


I visited your Store on Route 59 in Aurora, Illinois today. I was having trouble with my Blackberry device that I recently purchased and the customer service representative I spoke with advised me to visit a store to have the device replaced as I was well within the thirty day exchange and return period.


I have visited the Aurora store before, and I’ve come to expect very little in the way of service from the people who work there. The store is usually crowded and the staff ranges from incompetent to downright hostile. Today, I was assisted by a man named Chad who was rude and unhelpful and treated me as if I was a waste of his time since I wasn’t making a purchase. I noticed the store manager was standing behind Chad listening to our conversation. I didn’t explicitly ask for her help, hoping she’d take the cue and step-in but, alas, she didn’t. Ironically, Chad is the one who sold me the ten lines originally, although he didn’t remember me… I remember Chad being much more enthusiastic then.


I bought my first Sprint phone when I was twenty years old. I recently turned thirty. I stayed with you when you charged three dollars to speak with customer service on the phone. I didn’t leave when you billed me incorrectly month after month, for years. I was patient when I spent more time sorting out issues with my Sprint account than I did using my Sprint phone. No More.


You know what they say about camels’ backs and straw. Julie and Chad from your Aurora store just handed me my last piece of straw.

Sincerely,

Me

Sprint Releases Q2 Earnings Report.

There's plenty of bad news in the earnings report....but if you actually look at the numbers, there is also good news and plenty of positive signs.

Just like with the economy at large, which was at the brink of a great abyss just a few months ago, the short-sighted, quarterly report driven trader types forget how bad a shape Sprint was in before Hesse took over.

The economy is turning around. So is Sprint. But both are very large ships that take a while to change direction.

Sprint has slowed subscriber loss. It has made the right moves in the prepaid market - both with Boost and the unlimited plan and the recently announced purchase of Virgin Mobile USA.

Customer Service is leaps and bounds ahead of where it used to be...and IMHO it is now better than every other national carrier's customer service.

Pricing - both prepaid and postpaid - is excellent and best-in-class. And it positions Sprint as a premium brand while keeping the value-seeking consumers in-house on Boost and now Virgin without damaging the primary brand's value.

If you exclude the iCrap and the fanboys that come with it, Sprint has always had the latest devices. Look at the Pre. It's also trying hard to fight the perception that it's second fiddle to #1 VZW - it recently released the Blackberry Tour on the SAME day as Verizon where in the past such launches have lagged Verizon's by a few months.

There's also the next generation build-out. Sprint actually has markets live, where Verizon and AT&T are still issuing press releases about it. T-Mobile doesn't have much of a 3G footprint, so let's not even talk about their next-gen plans.

Go visit a company owned AT&T store and then go visit a company owned Sprint store. Then tell me which one looks like it's humming with energy and more customers shopping and taking care of business. Then compare where you receive better, more attentive service from employees. These are "soft" and intangible indicators of a company's performance that you won't see in an earnings report....but these things matter.

Sprint was first to offer a Femtocell solution - it will give you the equipment for free if you ask nicely, and has an unlimited calling option. Verizon just started offering a similar device, charges $250 for it, and there is no unlimited calling option. AT&T doesn't have anything like it.

The coverage foot-print of Sprint is virtually identical to Verizon's. With roaming agreements, anywhere there is a CDMA tower, you can use your Sprint phone. It's 3G network is best-in-class.

What Sprint needs to do now is expand its customer base and reduce competitive background noise. The purchase of Virgin was a good step. Next, if it can find the cash, buy US Cellular or the remains of Alltel....or other smaller CDMA providers.

There are short-sighted oafs, the banker types, who can't see past their nose. Don't be one of these people.

These are the same people that give the President shit for a slow economy The economy is getting better, slowly but surely. The stimulus is working. Give it time.

These are the same people who gave Verizon crap for investing in the next generation fiber network....and now look at the company's earnings and compare it to AT&T which really doesn't have a next generation wireline network plan.

And of course it's the same crowd that's telling us that Sprint is doomed while ignoring the huge amount of progress made. OK, so maybe the turnaround is not 180 degrees yet. But it's getting there.

Don't be one of those people.

If you would have bought stock when I told you to, under $2, your money would have doubled now. If you buy stock NOW at $4, your money will double in the next year.

Daylight

Thanks to my spiffy DVR I usually skip commercials. But I happened to watch an advertisement for Bacardi today and the song they used in it has been stuck in my head all day.

Of course, I had to Google it - It's called Daylight, by Matt and Kim. Here are the lyrics.

Hello World!

Hello World!