Bogus Gold

Hey, you know what would be terrific?! If the same guys who came up with this program also got around to reforming our health care system:

Some car shoppers are finding that their trade-in vehicles, which qualified for a Cash for Clunkers rebate last week, don't this week thanks to changes in the EPA's fuel economy ratings. ...

Even though the program's basic requirements have been known since it was created by Congress earlier this year, Cash for Clunkers didn't become official until July 24. So as part of the official launch, the EPA conducted "quality assurance and quality control effort regarding fuel economy calculations on more than 30,000 vehicle model types spanning the past 25 years," according to an e-mail sent by EPA spokesman Dale Kemery.

As a result, eligibility for roughly 100 vehicles was affected, Kemery wrote. However, roughly equal numbers became newly eligible and newly ineligible.

Hey, it's a new law. Gotta give the overseeing agency at least one mulligan. No reason to blow a gasket over this. So they screwed up a few thousand car sales by an unannounced last minute tweak to their regulations. If you're a glass-half-full kinda person you might turn that around to say that it might make another few thousand hypothetical car sales even better than before.

Besides I'm sure they'll be much more careful when it comes to deciding which medical procedures are covered rather than which cars they want to buy back. It only stands to reason... the more power you give the government, the more they'll defer to your well being.

And I, for one, welcome our new insurance claim overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted blogger, I can be helpful in rallying support behind their benevolent rule of our medical world. And if this in any way lends them to decide more favorably when it comes to covering the expense of my next colonoscopy I will surely hail it as yet more evidence of their righteousness and beneficence.