Megan McArdle has what may seem like a crazy idea to some: Just read the law.
4 thoughts on “ObamaCare’s Intent”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
The answer is never four even though only four fingers are visible.
It is like this with everything. The ACA, Climate Change, even the auto repair shop is in on the act.
I took my Camry in for time-mileage-and-wear related work — a new camshaft “timing” belt and new rear struts.
I go there to pick the car up, and the back end is now jacked up like the 60’s style of “hot rodding.” “Oh, it’s within specs, those are the correct struts for your car, and with time it may ‘settle’ down to a lower height.”
How many fingers am I holding up?
The car idles roughly, it downshifts sharply on moderate upgrades, and the fuel flow is up on my Scan Gauge. You can’t argue with anyone selling you a car or fixing your car, so I scrape up my hands taking the top timing belt cover off the compare the timing mark on the crankshaft pulley (harmonic balancer) against the camshaft mark alignment. It is off — a lot — I take pictures, and I take the car back to get this corrected.
I get a call back that not only am I wrong and they did it right (“you can’t go by the mark on the harmonic balancer”) but for some mysterious reason, my alternator has just failed, “Fortunately this happened in our shop, not out on the road where it left you stranded, and can you give us the OK for a $350 alternator replacement?”
How many fingers am I holding up?
I take the alternator into a car parts place for testing and it is just fine — the guy suggested that the charging light was a loose alternator wire, and indeed tightening the wire fixed it. I purchase a strobe light (never thought I would need one in the days of computer engine controls), verify that the harmonic balancer mark is indeed correct and that the shop had my cam misaligned a full two belt notches or 30 crankshaft degrees. I correct this and the car runs much, much better.
I e-mail the manager of the shop to relate this experience. The manager suggests that he doesn’t know about the technical aspects about the photos I sent him, but his “technicians” go through a rigorous training program, he relies on the expertise of his technicians, and his technician rechecked my car, so it has to be OK the way he set it.
How many fingers am I holding up?
I suppose you will all tell meguess auto repair has always and often been likened to a torture-interrogation at the hands of WInston Smith’s tormentor
Hit Post by accident.
It’s not just car repair, everything is a torture interrogation at the hands of O’Brien. I would never characterize this as lying because a liar is content with sticking to a false story. Here, from the technician to the service writer to the service manager, the objective is to break you. I love your repair service shop. I will come back there with all my automotive service needs.
Obviously, if it had happened, this would have been a huge story–
Dear Megan, it was reported in the press as moronic at the time. On this -specific- point of establishing state exchanges versus federal exchanges. Somewhere right in the last couple months before actually passing. It was not WIDELY reported, and it didn’t become the huge story you might expect. Why -is- that Megan?
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
The answer is never four even though only four fingers are visible.
It is like this with everything. The ACA, Climate Change, even the auto repair shop is in on the act.
I took my Camry in for time-mileage-and-wear related work — a new camshaft “timing” belt and new rear struts.
I go there to pick the car up, and the back end is now jacked up like the 60’s style of “hot rodding.” “Oh, it’s within specs, those are the correct struts for your car, and with time it may ‘settle’ down to a lower height.”
How many fingers am I holding up?
The car idles roughly, it downshifts sharply on moderate upgrades, and the fuel flow is up on my Scan Gauge. You can’t argue with anyone selling you a car or fixing your car, so I scrape up my hands taking the top timing belt cover off the compare the timing mark on the crankshaft pulley (harmonic balancer) against the camshaft mark alignment. It is off — a lot — I take pictures, and I take the car back to get this corrected.
I get a call back that not only am I wrong and they did it right (“you can’t go by the mark on the harmonic balancer”) but for some mysterious reason, my alternator has just failed, “Fortunately this happened in our shop, not out on the road where it left you stranded, and can you give us the OK for a $350 alternator replacement?”
How many fingers am I holding up?
I take the alternator into a car parts place for testing and it is just fine — the guy suggested that the charging light was a loose alternator wire, and indeed tightening the wire fixed it. I purchase a strobe light (never thought I would need one in the days of computer engine controls), verify that the harmonic balancer mark is indeed correct and that the shop had my cam misaligned a full two belt notches or 30 crankshaft degrees. I correct this and the car runs much, much better.
I e-mail the manager of the shop to relate this experience. The manager suggests that he doesn’t know about the technical aspects about the photos I sent him, but his “technicians” go through a rigorous training program, he relies on the expertise of his technicians, and his technician rechecked my car, so it has to be OK the way he set it.
How many fingers am I holding up?
I suppose you will all tell meguess auto repair has always and often been likened to a torture-interrogation at the hands of WInston Smith’s tormentor
Hit Post by accident.
It’s not just car repair, everything is a torture interrogation at the hands of O’Brien. I would never characterize this as lying because a liar is content with sticking to a false story. Here, from the technician to the service writer to the service manager, the objective is to break you. I love your repair service shop. I will come back there with all my automotive service needs.
Obviously, if it had happened, this would have been a huge story–
Dear Megan, it was reported in the press as moronic at the time. On this -specific- point of establishing state exchanges versus federal exchanges. Somewhere right in the last couple months before actually passing. It was not WIDELY reported, and it didn’t become the huge story you might expect. Why -is- that Megan?
Nails it:
http://www.imao.us/index.php/2015/05/obamacare-bluntly/