But Hey, Why Sweat The Small Stuff?

The nicest thing about Congress these days is that one doesn’t have to bone up on a lot of new issues - the old ones are still alive, well and completely unresolved.

Merrill Lynch issued a press release the other day: “We applaud the introduction of financial services modernization in the House of Representatives and urge swift passage of this bill.” I’m pretty sure that’s the same press release they issued last year and the year before that and the year before that and … “Financial services modernization,” by the way, is that same old horrible idea that will let banks merge with brokerages and insurance companies, thus creating super-giant financial services firms.

We can confidently assume that this bad idea will lead to reduced services, inflated prices and sharing of customer information among company affiliates. Consumer groups are asking for measures that would require financial firms to protect the confidentiality of their customers’ financial and personal information.

Here’s a great item from The New York Times: “Three of the largest proposed telecommunications mergers in history were challenged today by consumer groups and rival companies at a hearing that raised fundamental questions about whether the broad deregulation of the industry, intended to promote competition, was starting to have the opposite effect.”

That calls for the riposte we considered the height of wit in the second grade: Duh! “STARTING to have the opposite effect”? It’s been having the opposite effect ever since it was passed, and since the de-reg bill was written by the industry, that’s what any fool would have predicted.

According to a forecast piece in the Chicago Tribune, “As unsettled as the telecommunications industry was during 1998, with Baby Bells devouring their siblings and the fourth-biggest long-distance company swallowing No. 2, it’s just a warm-up for the real chaos ahead in 1999.”

Cramming and slamming (unauthorized charges on your phone bill and switching long-distance companies without customer authorization) are still fun games. And note the latest rip-off: The phone company no longer prints a map in the front of the phone book showing the area codes in your state and nationally. You now have to call Information for that information. You get three free calls to information a month - and then, guess what?!

And of course, various aspects of health care are back on the legislative menu:

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are 11.6 million children in this country with no health care insurance.

Since the government sharply reduced payments to home health agencies, many of them have gone out of business, leaving many Medicare beneficiaries without home health care. Consumer advocates say those hardest hit are the ones who use home health care the most: the chronically ill and disabled who are disproportionately poor, very old or living alone.

According to the Times, many of the big health maintenance organizations raised their premiums last year between 8 percent and 20 percent. Put that in the Patients’ Bill of Rights. Congress will try once more - by means that are no longer even controversial because they work so well where they have been tried and are not even expensive - to prevent HMO abuses of patients. Amazing. Maybe the thing will pass this year.

How nice to see the National Salvage Motor Vehicle Consumer Protection Act back again. The misnaming of bills has gotten so bad that newspapers are going to have to start putting the real purpose of every bill in parentheses right after its name, as in: the National Salvage Motor Vehicle Consumer Protection Act (Another Rip-off).

And then, of course, there is the horrible prospect that Congress will “save” Social Security for us. Since there’s nothing wrong with Social Security to begin with that can’t be fixed by pumping a little (very little) more money into it, you may wonder why all these people are wandering around like Chicken Little, announcing that Social Security is about to collapse. It’s because they want to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part, meaning that they want to take the money and put it in the stock market.

You will not reel upon learning that this move is heavily backed by Wall Street. Very heavily. Many, many big campaign contributions. Many big teeth. The better to eat you with. Beware.

We trust that President Clinton (who has at long last attained the dignity of “William Jefferson” by virtue of getting impeached) will try again on his sound proposal to finance school construction and reconstruction. He often does try again; perseverance is probably his major virtue.

So here we are in Rerun City, with Monica Lewinsky, still - after all these months - at the top of the agenda. We live in a great nation.