Excuse Me

To me, there is nothing worse than a lame excuse.  When you’ve been caught red-handed, have some dignity, man up, and admit that you screwed up.  When the whole world knows you’ve made a mess of things, it’s better to own your mistakes rather than to continue to try to justify your misdeeds.  I think that, like most people, I came to this realization dome time prior to my fifth birthday.  Unfortunately, some people have never learned this lesson

I think that the world heard the lamest excuse ever at the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War.  Nazi War Criminals, when identified as the perpetrators of genocide, and of being the most despicable people on the face of the earth, often quoted the mantra that “we were just following orders”.  Hanging was too good for these sub-human scum.

The second lamest excuse is only slightly better.  It’s basically just the civilian version of the ‘just following orders’ excuse.  Time and time again, we here of people who royally screwed the pooch explain  that they were  “just doing our job”.

This often escalates into even greater lameness when someone self appoints themselves to a job, fouls it up, and then tries to explain away their sub-par performance.

A prime example of this were the Windshield Swipers of Manhattan.  Those of you who lived around Manhattan may recall the  windshield swipers – homeless people who would spring on your car as soon as it was stopped at a light and then proceed – without invitation – to wipe your windshield with a dirty rag.  I can’t recall at time when my windshield was ever left cleaner after being the unwilling recipient of their ‘cleaning’ services.  Even though I never asked them to clean my windshield – and even though they always did a horrible job – they would also get belligerent or even violent if you didn’t pay them for their ‘service’

Thank goodness that Mayor Rudy Giuliani put an end  to these leeches  when he took office in the mid-eighties.  Manhattan is now a much nicer place to visit by car.

Of course, they windshield swipers didn’t go away without a fight – they claimed that they were (you guessed it) “ just doing their job “ .

While not readily apparent to most of us, we have a version of ‘Windshield Swipers’ in our healthcare system – and they are infinitely more intrusive, costly, and devastating to our economy and well being than a squeegee carrying Manhattanite   could ever be.  In fact, their uninvited ‘squeegeeing is ruining our healthcare system.

I am referring, of course, to our health insurance carriers.

Let’s put things in perspective.  Our health insurance carriers have injected themselves into our lives like a sterno bum at the exit of the Lincoln Tunnel.  They exact a 25-30% premium from us for their uninvited services, extorting hundreds of dollars every month from most Americans.   They greatly increase administrative overhead.  They cause runaway inflation in the cost of medicine.  They make medical decisions regarding our health and treatment.

They frustrate providers and patients alike.  They have  interjected themselves soundly into our healthcare system, much to it’s detriment.   

And how do they justify these dirty deeds?  They say that they are ‘just doing their jobs’.  They are helping ‘control the cost of medicine’.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a real problem with this.

First things first – who gave them the job of ‘controlling the cost of medicine’?  I certainly don’t recall doing this.  Nor do I recall an Executive order, or Act of Congress, or great public mandate demanding that they (or anyone else) help us ‘control the cost of medicine’.   They seem to have come up with this ‘job’ all by themselves.

Secondly, even if it is their job to help us ‘control  the cost of medicine’   (and that’s a VERY BIG ‘IF”. They are doing a terrible job of it.  In the past 20-30 years, as health insurance became an ever-larger part of the healthcare biosystem, we have watched helplessly as the cost of healthcare has spiraled hopelessly upwards, 

In other words, like that guy outside of Port Authority smearing my windshield, they suck at their self appointed job.  Instead of improving things, they make matters worse – in fact, much worse. It would be bad enough if we hired them to ‘help control the cost of medicine’, but we didn't   So, how do you fire someone you didn't hire?  In fact, this whole scheme sounds like something George Costanza dreamed up. 

Fortunately, Manhattan happens to hold the answer to this dilemma.  One of their most famous residents has made a second career of this.  So, it seems to me that all we need to do is to get The Donald himself to start calling out the major players in health insurance and let them know, in no uncertain terms, “You’re Fired!”

Now, that would be an episode of ‘The Apprentice’ worthy of my DVR.

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