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Cash for Clunkers goes...thud


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Apparently it wasn't written in to the bill. They tossed it around, but the lazy bastards were in too much of a hurry to go on vacation to actually bother with amending the legislation.

 

Dumb idea anyway. "Let's encourage people to buy new cars who can't afford the payments!" Did they not learn anything from the collapse of the mortgage market? :worthy:

 

One can very easily walk away from a car when the repo man comes a knockin'. The right down street to pay 1500 bucks cash for a clunker... Oh wait, they will be all smashed! :worthy:

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http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/n...ash_for_cl.html

 

Dealerships throughout the country are complaining that this has been one beauracratic nightmare. They all ready !@#$ed up by miscalculating the amount of funds that they would need by 200%, now they can't even get the money out.

 

N.J. car dealers say 'Cash for Clunkers' program a nightmare to navigate

 

Craig Ploetner has made more than a dozen deals with new car buyers under the "Cash for Clunkers" rebate program, but he's yet to receive any of the promised reimbursement from the federal government.

 

"I've gotten rejection after rejection," said Ploetner, president of Towne Auto Group in Union. "There's absolutely no logic to it. The administration of it is a disaster. It's like dealing with a computer program from 15 or 20 years ago."

 

 

A lot at James Toyota in Raritan Township filled with returned cars under the "Cash for Clunkers" program.

 

Now, he said, he's pulling out of the program until he sees some of the money -- tens of thousands of dollars --he's owned.

 

"I won't do it anymore," Ploetner said.

 

That clanking sound in the "Cash for Clunkers" program isn't a noisy valve or piston. It's the throbbing headache the program is giving dealers even as it bails them out of a deep decline in the car-buying market over the past year.

 

The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) has been such a bureaucratic nightmare for new car dealers that paperwork sitting on desks waiting to be processed could exhaust the $3 billion program weeks before it was supposed to end.

 

They've miscalculated the Stimulus Bill, the home remodification plan has been a failure, they didn't have the forsight to see that the credit card legislation bill would have "unintended consequences" of higher interest rates for good credit card holders, Cash for Clunkers program was improperly miscalculated along with having many beauracratic inefficiencies and we are suppose to believe that the Health Care Program which is a million times more complex, will be the one that they miraculously get right?

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http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/n...ash_for_cl.html

 

Dealerships throughout the country are complaining that this has been one beauracratic nightmare. They all ready !@#$ed up by miscalculating the amount of funds that they would need by 200%, now they can't even get the money out.

 

N.J. car dealers say 'Cash for Clunkers' program a nightmare to navigate

 

Craig Ploetner has made more than a dozen deals with new car buyers under the "Cash for Clunkers" rebate program, but he's yet to receive any of the promised reimbursement from the federal government.

 

"I've gotten rejection after rejection," said Ploetner, president of Towne Auto Group in Union. "There's absolutely no logic to it. The administration of it is a disaster. It's like dealing with a computer program from 15 or 20 years ago."

 

 

A lot at James Toyota in Raritan Township filled with returned cars under the "Cash for Clunkers" program.

 

Now, he said, he's pulling out of the program until he sees some of the money -- tens of thousands of dollars --he's owned.

 

"I won't do it anymore," Ploetner said.

 

That clanking sound in the "Cash for Clunkers" program isn't a noisy valve or piston. It's the throbbing headache the program is giving dealers even as it bails them out of a deep decline in the car-buying market over the past year.

 

The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) has been such a bureaucratic nightmare for new car dealers that paperwork sitting on desks waiting to be processed could exhaust the $3 billion program weeks before it was supposed to end.

 

They've miscalculated the Stimulus Bill, the home remodification plan has been a failure, they didn't have the forsight to see that the credit card legislation bill would have "unintended consequences" of higher interest rates for good credit card holders, Cash for Clunkers program was improperly miscalculated along with having many beauracratic inefficiencies and we are suppose to believe that the Health Care Program which is a million times more complex, will be the one that they miraculously get right?

 

Wait until doctors have to fill out the governmental forms to get paid for service. They'll spend more time filling forms that practicing medicine.

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Exactly. Talk to a doctor now regarding the paperwork. You don't thind getting the government more involved in health care will make it even worse?

of course not, they will become "leaner and meaner", just like Cash for Clunkers

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of course not, they will become "leaner and meaner", just like Cash for Clunkers

You are a jackass. My statement was that private insurers will need to find ways to cut costs to compete with the supposedly cheaper public option. Am I wrong or do you think the private insurance companies are as efficient as they can be right now?

 

Incidentally, way to grab on to a talking point and ride it into the ground. Rush/Hannity/Beck would be proud.

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Exactly. Talk to a doctor now regarding the paperwork. You don't thind getting the government more involved in health care will make it even worse?

I deal directly with doctors on a weekly basis. We design systems that do lots of things to streamline their practice's workflow, patient records and finances. We've also written software to help them streamline their insurance paperwork process: ie. auto-submission to the insurance companies when applicable/available. I can say that the differences we've had to write into our software to accommodate various standards and pricing models is unbelievable. The system needs some sort of order and standardization across various insurers. People who cite increased bureaucracy with government intervention fail to realize the potential for relatively complex submission software to make the process simple because of the government institution of common practices, pricing and submission process. Just my opinion.

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You are a jackass. My statement was that private insurers will need to find ways to cut costs to compete with the supposedly cheaper public option. Am I wrong or do you think the private insurance companies are as efficient as they can be right now?

 

Incidentally, way to grab on to a talking point and ride it into the ground. Rush/Hannity/Beck would be proud.

:lol:

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I deal directly with doctors on a weekly basis. We design systems that do lots of things to streamline their practice's workflow, patient records and finances. We've also written software to help them streamline their insurance paperwork process: ie. auto-submission to the insurance companies when applicable/available. I can say that the differences we've had to write into our software to accommodate various standards and pricing models is unbelievable. The system needs some sort of order and standardization across various insurers. People who cite increased bureaucracy with government intervention fail to realize the potential for relatively complex submission software to make the process simple because of the government institution of common practices, pricing and submission process. Just my opinion.

 

Standardization can be had without a public government program, though. In fact, I'd wager based on my experience with the government that a competing government program is likely to have the opposite effect - introduce yet another set of practices that, in the name of "competition", are non-binding on everyone but the government plan. It would be better to simply mandate a coherent set of baseline industry standards that insurers must adhere to for record keeping, and let everyone compete within that minimum constraint.

 

Government won't do that either, though. Not succesfully, at least.

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Standardization can be had without a public government program, though. In fact, I'd wager based on my experience with the government that a competing government program is likely to have the opposite effect - introduce yet another set of practices that, in the name of "competition", are non-binding on everyone but the government plan.

Agreed, but the need for reform is still there. Of course if we regulate it at all, we're Socialists.

 

It would be better to simply mandate a coherent set of baseline industry standards that insurers must adhere to for record keeping, and let everyone compete within that minimum constraint.

 

Government won't do that either, though. Not succesfully, at least.

Now who's the idealist?! :lol:

 

You've hit the nail on the head as far as my industry is concerned. Add in standardized EDC for patient records and we're on our way.

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You've hit the nail on the head as far as my industry is concerned. Add in standardized EDC for patient records and we're on our way.

 

And you bring up a good point. This is the reason many of us are against the complete overhaul of health care. I bet there area a million ways to reduce costs that really need to be looked at first before re-doing the whole thing.

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Agreed, but the need for reform is still there. Of course if we regulate it at all, we're Socialists.

 

But quite frankly, the industry is so complex and screwed up right now that nature of the needed reforms isn't necessarily clear-cut. The biggest complaint I have about the current effort (next to a public health care plan - which I simply disagree with on principle) is that it's one great big attempt to fix everything all at once. It causes the effort to be unfocused and all over the map, which is a simple and obvious recipe for more waste.

 

 

Now who's the idealist?! :lol:

 

I said "better". Not "practical". The only way I see that ever coming about is if an industry body does it, like the W3C as a collaborative body setting standards for the web.

 

And even then...ask anyone who's ever developed a web site for IE, Firefox, and Safari how well THAT standarization works.

 

You've hit the nail on the head as far as my industry is concerned. Add in standardized EDC for patient records and we're on our way.

 

Government's largely similar. I've got a simple application I'm writing right now that should be easy - except for about a thousand special cases I have to code into it ("If you in Cleveland, do this. But if you're in Albuquerque, do this, and if you're in Reno, do this.") In large part, it's just meaningless bureaucracy justifying its own existence...as bureaucracy is wont to do.

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Standardization can be had without a public government program, though. In fact, I'd wager based on my experience with the government that a competing government program is likely to have the opposite effect - introduce yet another set of practices that, in the name of "competition", are non-binding on everyone but the government plan. It would be better to simply mandate a coherent set of baseline industry standards that insurers must adhere to for record keeping, and let everyone compete within that minimum constraint.

 

Government won't do that either, though. Not succesfully, at least.

What you just said is precisely what Obama was talking about when he said "The public plan isn't the entire health care reform, it's just a sliver." There are several points in the plans to overhaul the accounting systems and software and way we pay and standardization, etc, that have nothing to do with the public plan. They are in the bills regardless, and will help reform regardless, but everyone is talking about the public plan as if this were the biggest or most important or the entire reason for reform and it's not. It's just a component, and other components are not necessarily dependent upon having a public plan or not.

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There are several points in the plans to overhaul the accounting systems and software and way we pay and standardization, etc, that have nothing to do with the public plan.

 

Yes, and as I've said before, I agree with some of what's in the bill (in principle, at least. Implementation is another story).

 

And did you just skip over the part where I said that trying to fix everything all at once is an idiotic idea?

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I said "better". Not "practical". The only way I see that ever coming about is if an industry body does it, like the W3C as a collaborative body setting standards for the web.

 

And even then...ask anyone who's ever developed a web site for IE, Firefox, and Safari how well THAT standardization works.

 

Government's largely similar. I've got a simple application I'm writing right now that should be easy - except for about a thousand special cases I have to code into it ("If you in Cleveland, do this. But if you're in Albuquerque, do this, and if you're in Reno, do this.") In large part, it's just meaningless bureaucracy justifying its own existence...as bureaucracy is wont to do.

I didn't know you were a developer - there are so many competing standards in play or coming into play and without some governing body, it will take forever to sort itself out. The evolution of W3C standards is a perfect example of this.

 

Because of nonsensical politics, people are focusing on the wrong things. The overall system need to be improved, but the greatest gains in efficiency will come from the standardization of communications protocols, patient records, etc... within these types of software systems. This is why I don't really think that any added complexity within the rules governing health care brought on by added government control will adversely affect the bottom lines of the private insurance companies. They will of course have to upgrade their systems and move into the digital age, but that's really in everyones best interest, including theirs.

 

I understand your objection to the public plan, but I don't consider myself a Libertarian and the public plan seems reasonable to me.

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I heard on talk show radio from a finance person who stated they had 38 clunkers on the lot and have yet to receive any money for them. Another salesman from another dealership called in and said the same thing but they were running out of new cars because without the money from the government they couldn't buy any more stock to sell. Another program that has gone "thud".

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You are a jackass. My statement was that private insurers will need to find ways to cut costs to compete with the supposedly cheaper public option. Am I wrong or do you think the private insurance companies are as efficient as they can be right now?

 

Incidentally, way to grab on to a talking point and ride it into the ground. Rush/Hannity/Beck would be proud.

 

Of course they aren't efficient, they are regulated. Allow insurance companies to compete over state lines, allow them to offer different plans in every state for cater to the customer's needs (e.g. look at NJ insurance), and enact tort reform so that doctor's aren't under the sword of Damocles, and allow doctors to act freely in their care without the threat of lawsuit.

 

If you think people go to see the doctor and need 10 different tests you know who you can blame for that right? My wife, 25, had 10 tests just for a regular visit. They knew she was healthy, but the "just in case I get my ass sued" testing was needed. They tried that on me and I told the doc that I didn't need the tests.

 

Get rid of the lawyers except for egregious errors, allow insurances over state lines, allow true competition that is not regulated insanely, and reward people for paying cash.

 

Will it solve all the issues? Nope, but it protects our freedoms and lowers the cost overnight.

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