Post a Comment On: BoomerGripes

That may sound like any oxymoron, but retailer Sy Simms used that catch phrase for decades. In today's economy, we need Americans to step up their awareness of changes in our marketplace. 
As previously called for in this blog, mobile operators are finally unshackling customers from artificial plans, prices and constraints. Walk into a Verizon store, tell the sales rep you'd like to buy a phone, and the response you get is "Let's see if you qualify!" Qualify? You're in the USA, you have cash and they have product. Sounds like capitalism to me! Why can't you just buy? 
Because they're holding you to a long term contract in exchange for an artificially low price on a phone. Wouldn't you rather understand what the phone is actually worth, pay the price, and be free to change carriers or put the phone for sale on eBay whenever you feel like it? Of course you would. Well, thanks to many boomer gripers, the operators have seen the light, and that's starting to happen. 
Now you can just buy a phone, pick an operator and a plan - and be happy. The phone will seem more expensive, but it isn't. You've traded contracts for freedom. Manufacturers will start adjusting list prices in response to demand. You will be paying the fair market price. 
That's about to happen in health care. The US Government has finally abolished 'red lining' in the medical insurance market. What does that mean? Red lining is the unlawful prior practice of saying - whispering, actually - that a lender will not make mortgage loans on "that side of the tracks". That's what has existed in health insurance. 
If you work for LargeCompany, Inc., you're a good health risk and you get low rates. But if you work for SmallCompany, Inc., you're not such a good risk and you get higher rates. And if you work for NoCompany, Inc., meaning the unemployed, you get no insurance at all. But when the uninsured get care in Emergency Rooms all over the country, we all pay the bill anyway. Why shouldn't they have a way to pay?
Well... how about saying "You are an American Citizen", so that's like working for the biggest and best company in the world, and therefore, you qualify for the best care at the best rates in the world. That's what is about to happen. Not all at once, but it is in process.
Free market plans will be available to all citizens soon. They might seem a bit pricey at first, as the carriers work out the kinks, but you will win in the end. 
So learn about all your options, make wise choices. You happen to be the generation that is going through this change, but twenty years from now, the country will be better off. So, thanks for understanding - and for being an educated consumer.