Crazy policies exist everywhere, but in government they’re a way of life. As I contemplate the prospect of the current administration running the health care system in America, I offer this example of an existing government agency policy that should give you pause. Maybe this is too easy, as my example is the TSA. Yes, those Einsteins at the airport who frisk grandmothers on walkers. Here’s the scenario:
I wanted to bring some silverware on the plane with me from my mother’s home in another city that included the usual forks, knives and spoons. This was real silver and I did not care to take the chance of checking my carry-on and wondering where it might go or even be opened and stolen. And that does happen. So I found the TSA website and read the list of approved and not-allowed items, looking for silverware, and specifically the knives. What I found was that rounded-end butter knives are allowed (are there any other kind of butter knives?), but nothing is said about dinner knives. Which are also rounded. Knives of other categories are listed, but regular, ordinary dinner knives are absent.
So I wrote an email asking if my silver dinner knives were acceptable and by the way, why aren’t they listed on your website? The reply: we don’t make general policy for every item and leave it up to the local TSA officers on site to make the call. Take your silverware to the airport and if they say it’s allowed, it’s allowed. If they say no, then it’s not.
What? It’s an arbitrary decision? You just can’t make a policy decision on dinner knives so you leave it up to the whims of the local personnel? Were you too exhausted after determining butter knives were OK to go the next step to dinner knives? So if I encounter a TSA screener in a bad mood he might take it out on me? “Sorry, no dinner knives allowed! Now if they were butter knives you’d be fine, but nix on the dinner knives.” It’s a crap shoot, then?
I know it’s easy to pick on the TSA as the absurdities of their regulations are well-known. But here we go again. We continue to allow this and that’s a shame. We have given up and go along with some of the most ill-conceived policies and poor service imaginable, all courtesy of a federal government agency. We throw up our hands and say “Well, that’s the government for you. What do you expect?” Think about that as you consider the prospect of government-run health care. We know already what will happen because we’ve seen it all before.
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