Saturday, May 01, 2010

Another Egregious Example

We're getting all set for the love-making experience that will be our newly governmentalized healthchare system. You can't help but recall the rhetoric about "bending the cost curve" and getting so much more done for so much less. It's going to be the absolute epitome of bureaucratic efficiency on display. We can only wonder if we will get kissed during the process.

That's why this is so illustrative of what we can expect:

The Decennial Experience

The Constitution mandates it, but it only happens every ten years. You would think that the intervening period would allow for the whiz-kids of government to hone their skills and oil up their system.

But apparently during the last ten years we spent just under a Big B on a system of hand-held computers which would give the army of politically correct census taking drones an on-the-spot update of which houses they should be canvassing. It sure sounds nicely late twentieth century. I mean if we can have a cellphone to text while driving, read email, watch YouTube viddies and get ball-game scores then it seems we ought to be able to put a smart phone on every census flunky's hand to disseminate the word.

It seems they didn't let the contract to a company that could deliver. The Chicago contractor wasn't able to get enough duct tape and 8-track cartridges to cobble together a system. Scratch that and go with PBOCS. I'm sure someone got a bonus for creating "Pee-Box" to bandy about on the Census Bureau PowerPoints.

The Paper Based Operations Control System apparently is a glorified email that prints out a paper assignment list for the door-knocker. And, unbelievably that cutting edge technology can't be fielded with "adequate stability" to serve the need.

How about a $300 Netbook with GPS and a Verizon connection then send emails once a week?

Yeah, healthcare run by the government is going to be a real trip.

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