The Bush administration has driven government to the same levels of bloat, corruption and inefficiency. And next thing you know, even more of our seniors are going to be living in poverty.
Federal investigators posing as senior citizens found that Medicare's operators routinely failed to give callers accurate and complete information about the government's new drug benefit, prompting Democratic critics of the Bush administration program to again request an extension of an approaching enrollment deadline.
The investigators said that about one-third of their calls resulted in faulty responses or no response at all because of disconnected calls. The accuracy rates varied a great deal based on the question, but when it came to one of the most important questions, operators provided the right answer only 41 percent of the time. That question concerned which drug plan cost the least for a beneficiary based on certain drug needs.
And if that isn't enough for you, look at this chart on how many people in the US are going without healthcare.
Posted by binky at May 3, 2006 05:37 PM | TrackBack | Posted to PoliticsI don't think you get to blame the ineptitude and nastiness of the federal bureaucracy on W, tempting as that might be. This is hardly a new problem.
Posted by: jacflash at May 3, 2006 07:10 PM | PERMALINKYou're certainly right that Bush didn't invent any of these things. He is working on perfecting them, however.
The bloat is at record levels. The corruption, well, we can hang on to see what the Abramoff records show in a few days, but then we can compare to Abscam etc. but the cronyism causing direct results of cock-ups in the executive branch is astounding. And the inefficiency of giving the wrong answer to one of the most vulnerable sectors of the population up to 60% of the time? I'll just say it...I'd rather waste money than cause harm to people. This is causing harm to people, not just in the wrong answers, but in the stress to the senior citizens. This stuff really can have a serious impact on their well-being.
Posted by: binky at May 3, 2006 07:18 PM | PERMALINKWell, to the extent that his government is expanding bloated programs at levels not since the 1960's, and since this seems to be his favored approach to dealing with severe problems and concerns that afflict millions of Americans - W is in some sense responsible for this. I mean if he's a manager worth anything he should have some idea about how his policies are implemented, and some control over that.
Posted by: Armand at May 4, 2006 03:58 PM | PERMALINK