Is there any connection between the Cash for Clunkers program and a proposed government-run health insurance option?
Let's hope not.
The hugely popular car allowance rebate program blew through $3 billion in promises of government money in just four weeks, helping to sell an estimated 700,000 cars. But most dealers haven't gotten a cent from the government, threatening dealerships that desperately need cash to stay open.
The Obama Administration last week responded to complaints -- in some ways, a victim of its success -- by tripling the number of workers handling reimbursement claims.
Let's hope the government doesn't make the same mistake when it launches a public insurance option, a plan to which millions of Americans are likely to flock.
It makes you wonder.
Is a clunky government bureaucracy really prepared to run an efficient health care system?
This blog brought to you by the Sun-Times editorial board (click on names to read bios):
Private health insurers are notoriously slow in paying claims. In my experience, you have to wait at least 3 months just to see if something has been processed.
The government has already paid several claims in less than a month of the program being in existence. I'd say so far it's performance is more efficient than that of private health insurers.
NB has obviously never dealth with a government health care agency. Tricare routinely took so long to pay claims that I'd have to fight to get bad comments out of my credit report due to their slowness. 20 years of experience with them has made me fear the "public option".
They once refused to pay my son's medical bill because the other person in the accident wouldn't provide insurance information. The other "person" was a tree he hit driving alone! Seven months later, and a picture of the tree finally convinced them there was no other insurance to try and bill. Six months after that I finally got the hospital's charges off of my credit reports. That's government efficiency.
Cash for Clunkers is the ultimate government program. Under estimate it's popularity, and the $$ needed to fund it by about 300%, and then scramble when you realize the mistakes.
According to the original estimates, Medicare should be costing us $100 billion a year today, not $350 billion. So one wonders how far off the $1 trillion price tag of health care reform is.
i would like to see the evidence that "most dealerships haven't gotten a cent". i frankly don't believe that. most car dealers are republicans and this canard comes from a dealers association. at this point i think pretty much every republican who is breathing on their own is looking for ways to smear the obama administration. so, show me the money.
Sounds like a good indicator to me...this administration is tone deaf to the people that elected them. They have big ideas with little thought for the "details". And, the devil is in the details. Since when are dealerships only run by Republicans? What about the people who bought the vehicles...are they all Republicans too? Now they have to hire more people and that costs the taxpayers more money. Do they have a clue as to how to plan for a program that they promoted? Get a clue...these are issues facing America not Democrats or Republicans. The government can't even handle issuing driver's license or delivering the mail without budget deficits. This Cash for Clunkers is the latest indication of the government's incompetence.
THEY WILL GET PAID, THEY JUST AREN'T GETTING PAID AS FAST AS THEY WOULD LIKE TO, ROME WASN'T INVENTED IN A DAY, AND NEITHER IS SELLING CARS, IF ANY DEALERSHIP IS CRYING OVER SPILLED MILK, SHAME ON THEM!
YOU WERE STARVING TO DEATH UNDER THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, AND NOW THE 44TH PRESIDENT COMES UP WITH THIS GREAT IDEA, AND YOU STILL CRY AND NOW ALL OF YOU HAVE HIT IT BIG WITH THIS PROGRAM, YOUR MONEY IS ON THE WAY, BE PATIENT!
Hey Mo. Obama closed all the Republican dealerships when he took over the auto industry remember? And I would assume that you could have all the "evidence" in the world and you still wouldn't believe it. Don't choke on the Koolaid.
The UAW always bragging about how well built American made cars are, and why their union members deserve high salaries.
Well let's take a look at the vehicles that were traded in versus the the vehicles bought, during the Cash for Clunkers program.
The Top Ten Cash for Clunkers Trade-Ins:
1. 1998 Ford Explorer
2. 1997 Ford Explorer
3. 1996 Ford Explorer
4. 1999 Ford Explorer
5. Jeep Grand Cherokee
6. Jeep Cherokee
7. 1995 Ford Explorer
8. 1994 Ford Explorer
9. 1997 Ford Windstar
10. 1999 Dodge Caravan
Ten for ten American made clunkers. No foreign made cars?
The Top Ten Cash for Clunkers New Cars:
1. Ford Focus
2. Honda Civic
3. Toyota Corolla
4. Toyota Prius
5. Ford Escape
6. Toyota Camry
7. Dodge Caliber
8. Hyundai Elantra
9. Honda Fit
10. Chevy Cobalt
Amazing that six out of ten new cars bought have foreign names in contrast to the ten for ten that were sold as junk - excuse me - clunkers.
So America, why didn't you buy AMERICAN MADE CARS WITH THIS BAILOUT? It would have helped the American Economy greatly. Put people back to work!
Just a bunch of hypocrites that whine but when given a freebie, run out and help another country's economy while trying to blame President Obama.
Congress and he tried to steer you knuckleheads in the right the directions, but you still went out and bought foreign made cars at a higher rate than American made cars.
Why?
You know that American made junk is worthless!
NOT ONE FOREIGN MADE CAR MADE THE TOP TEN CLUNKER LIST IS A TELLING STORY OF AMERICANS AND THEIR GREED.
No wonder the money went so fast, Americans were buying foreign made products as usual!! Keep blaming others for your ineptness, that is what losers do.
You can try to hide the truth but the American economy is still screwed over! The UAW in previous salary contract negotiations with the Big Three Automakers made demands that the automakers couldn't keep. This is what lead to cars with low gas mileage and high sticker prices. This in turn leads to needing a FIX for OIL mentality to start wars to attain it. If American scientists and engineers can build rocket ships to go to outer space, I know darn well these same individuals can build fuel efficient vehicles regardless of size.
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2009/08/cash-for-clunkers-top-10-most-popular-new-cars-and-trade-ins.html
The link above proves my point.
The top ten trade ins were ALL AMERICAN MADE VEHICLES!
Top 10 cash for clunkers trade-ins:
1. Ford Explorer 4WD
2. Ford F150 Pickup 2WD
3. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD
4. Jeep Cherokee 4WD
5. Ford Explorer 2WD
6. Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan
7. Chevrolet Blazer 4WD
8. Ford F-150 Pickup 4WD
9. Chevrolet C1500 Pickup 2WD
10. Ford Windstar
The EIGHT OUT OF TEN PURCHASES were FOREIGN MADE VEHICLES!
Top 10 cash for clunkers purchases:
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus
4. Toyota Camry
5. Hyundai Elantra
6. Toyota Prius
7. Nissan Versa
8. Ford Escape FWD
9. Honda Fit
10. Honda CR-V AWD
Maybe that is why the money is slow coming in. Though funded by the American government look at the automakers who benefited most! Americans still don't get it! You do not have to be a protectionist country to keep your economy going, but when it is taking a serious hit, it would seem BUY AMERICAN FIRST would be the first thought.
But American automakers have nothing worthy of buying in the first place!
But as stated earlier, the UAW, the Auto Lobbyists and Washington's politicians are the ones who tanked the American Auto Industry! While we continued to build behemoths gas guzzlers, our competitors kept right on building fuel efficient automobiles. Who fault is that? ALL THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA! We act like we are not in a global economy, though we outsourced and build companies in other parts of the world for cheap labor. And than in turn sell the merchandise at over-inflated prices to Americans.
But I will not let the Obama administration off so easy. Now what will those people who couldn't afford to buy a new car in the Clunker's Program do when needing auto parts for their old cars? Those cars still have to be maintained, everyone couldn't buy a new car.
What will the auto industry do in six months or next year this time when car sales are down?
THIS WAS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT!!
DO NOT HIDE THE TRUTH!
Phil Smith Jr. Please, no need to yell. As a manager of a large metro Toyota dealership, and yes, a conservative, I can avow to the utter disappointment with the inefficiencies we've experienced with the CARS program. (The C4C idea, by the way, was not the President's but rather a Congressmwoman's.)
It seems that everyone within spitting distance of the program wants to take credit for the good parts of the CARS program, but ignore or avoid taking credit for its' shortcomings.
Unless you have a sound basis for your assumptions about how auto dealers benefitted from CARS, and I suspect you do not, you should at least talk to someone who had to look for answers about a program whose rules changed eight times from the beginning. You should experience the frustration of logging onto and being cut-off an inefficient website hundreds of times a day just to enter information for one sale. You should experience being told by government bureaucrats that you're a bunch of morons who can't fill in simple forms when you know better. After all, as an industry, we retailers of automobiles execute complex contracts of every sort millions of times a month correctly or we don't get paid: we're not morons at paperwork, we're experts at it.
So if you must yell about something Mr. Smith, experience our frustration and the yell about the bureaucrats.